


Dragonchoice

by Faye Upton (Faye109)



Series: The Dragonchoice trilogy [1]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 04:57:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 67,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4863998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faye109/pseuds/Faye%20Upton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The riders of Madellon Weyr are suffering the consequences of a self-serving Weyrleader, an inexperienced Weyrwoman, and an ungrateful Pern. Shimpath, the sole queen, is soon to rise. T'kamen, bronze Epherineth's rider, is determined to win her. But the cut-throat politics of the Seventh Interval will turn on more than just a dragon's choice... Book 1 of the Dragonchoice trilogy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> _Dragonchoice_ was first posted in the official Fan Fiction Forums at Anne McCaffrey's Kitchen Table in 2001. It was followed by a sequel, _Dragonchoice 2: Dragonchosen_ , in 2004. The third and final _Dragonchoice_ story, _Dragonchoice 3: Weyrleader of Pern_ , is being posted as of October 2015.
> 
> The first two _Dragonchoice_ stories can also be found in full, and with more than fifty illustrations, at the [Dragonchoice website](http://www.dragonchoice.com).

As the Weyr quickened with activity in the early hours of a mid-summer morning, a single bronze dragon watched from his ledge in unblinking, unreadable silence.

He watched alone, as always: few dragons chose weyrs so far up the steep walls of the Bowl, not with plenty of lower-level, better-equipped caves to choose from. Empty caverns yawned in every direction around him. He liked it that way. He liked to spend his mornings in solitude.

“Watching again?”

The dragon did not turn to regard his companion, but moved his head slightly to allow himself a better view of the killing grounds. Far below, a golden form dived gracefully to dash the life from her prey, and the bronze watched, silent and inscrutable, as the queen broke her fast. He watched the teeth gleam white and then red as they rent the flesh, the muscles move fluidly under the shining hide, the sinuous tail lash in an unconscious reflection of the instincts awoken by the feed.

And he watched the burly bronze launch from the Weyrleader’s ledge to join the queen: not to feed, but to protect.

The quiet dragon’s expression didn’t change as he regarded the other bronze, but his claws flexed unconsciously, biting into the worn and scarred rock of his weyr ledge.

The harsh grate of talon against stone could not possibly have carried to the senior bronze below, but nonetheless, Pierdeth lifted his head to fix his observer with an arrogant stare.

Shimpath fed on, oblivious, as the two males locked eyes over her head in silent conflict.

Finally, Pierdeth tossed his head back in a challenging bugle, daring his opponent to respond. The chorus of inquiring calls that echoed off the walls of the Weyr meant nothing to either dragon: the querulous voices of lesser colours questioning the roar of their lead male. But the silence that remained in their aftermath seemed louder by far than those cries. Epherineth, the quiet bronze, simply watched: silent and motionless.

His superiority unchallenged, Pierdeth’s gaze returned to the queen, following her every movement until she returned to her ledge, heavy with food.

T’kamen touched his dragon’s fore-claw, bringing Epherineth back to himself, but like the dragon himself, he said nothing.

Epherineth gathered himself, shaking his head to ease the tension in the long muscles of his sleek neck. _Not yet_ , was all he would reveal. _Not yet_.


	2. Chapter One

Valonna was careful to keep her eyes down and her attention focused solely on the lukewarm bowl of porridge before her as L'dro entered the lower caverns.

She had heard him come in – accustomed, conditioned even, to listening for her Weyrleader's voice and the confident rhythm of his boots against the stone floor – and so, too, had she seen his companion, before hastily averting her gaze. The woman's name was Jayena, the green rider who'd been on maternity leave from active practice until five months into her pregnancy, when she had abruptly vanished from the lists. The Headwoman had refused Valonna any details, of course, but she'd guessed. She kept the familiar surge of hurt down by forcing herself to be surprised at Jayena's reappearance on L'dro's arm. The green rider must really have wanted to reclaim her place in the Weyrleader's affections to risk aborting so late. L'dro had little time for child-heavy females.

But Valonna knew better than to notice, and so it was with her usual careful deference that she greeted the Weyrleader. "Good morning, L'dro."

He sprawled in his heavily padded chair and rubbed at the dark circles ringing his eyes before feeling the klah pitcher on the table and then pushing it away. "This is cold."

"I'll get another one," Valonna heard herself reply, rising automatically to her feet. She struggled to push back her heavy chair. Even after almost five Turns, she didn't have the knack of manhandling the bulky piece of furniture with her predecessor's ostentatious ease.

Valonna didn't mind standing in line at the service hatch, but she knew L'dro considered it beneath his dignity as leader of Madellon's fighting Wings. He was more than within his rights to call a drudge to serve him, but L'dro was notoriously impatient in the mornings, and Valonna had soon learned that it was best to respond to his needs herself. If the Headwoman would only assign a serving woman to the top table at breakfast…but she never had, and she never would, while Valonna was capable of walking and carrying. Sometimes she could almost forget that Adrissa was L'dro's birth mother, but it was difficult to ignore the Headwoman's overt disrespect for her.

But if standing with the common riders of the Weyr was intended as an ignominy, it was not an ordeal. Riders and Weyrfolk alike gave way for her to be served first, often with a smile or respectful nod. Valonna found it very easy to smile back. She wished it could be as easy to join in with the informal conversation, but keeping L'dro waiting was never wise, and besides, she hardly knew most of Madellon's complement of dragonriders.

"Good morning, Weyrwoman!"

The cheerful greeting brightened Valonna's day. C'los' broad grin, brilliant white in his brown face, was always so friendly and open that Valonna had almost gathered the courage to reply on more than one occasion, but this morning, like all the others, she could only offer a tentative smile in return.

Even in the heat of summer, Madellon's riders drank enough klah to fill the Weyr's great primary lake, and the big kettle from which a kitchen woman had been filling klah pitchers was empty. Two sturdy drudges were bringing another kettle from the hearth, but the delay made Valonna tense. She looked back over her shoulder. L'dro had sunk even lower in his chair as D'feng, his towering, thin-faced Second, made his morning report.

"Fantastic day, isn't it?"

The Weyrwoman jerked her eyes back to the rider standing beside her. "S-sorry?"

"It's a fantastic day," C'los repeated. "Sun's out, sky's blue. Great day to be a dragonrider, don't you think?"

Valonna smiled again, beginning to feel nervous. "I suppose it is."

"Indioth and I were flying sweep yesterday," C'los continued. "I almost wish I'd drawn today. It's really cleared up. That thunder we had last sevenday..." He shook his head in sage denouement. "No, I'm glad we have time off on a day like this."

The Weyrwoman willed the drudges to hurry. It wasn't that she objected to the green rider's conversation – she just didn't know what to say.

Apparently oblivious to her dilemma, C'los went on as if he hadn't stopped. "My daughter's at the Harperhall, so we might go and visit her, but that all depends on if her mother's free or not. And the weather might not be so good up there – you know what Kellad can be like."

The fresh klah kettle arrived, and Valonna laid her hands upon the first pitcher. "Well..." She floundered for something to say in parting, but speech eluded her.

"Say, why don't you come sit with my weyrmate and me?"

Valonna froze. "With your...?"

"Yeah, I know C'mine isn't everyone's idea of the perfect breakfast partner, but he complains if I abandon him." C'los grinned, presumably to show that he was joking.

"I didn't mean...! But...I..." Valonna looked mutely at the klah pitcher, and then over at L'dro. D'feng was still talking to him, but the Weyrleader never let his Second talk for very long in the mornings, and he would soon be wondering where his klah was.

C'los followed her gaze. "No problem." He turned to the lanky young man next to him in line. "Hey, T'rello, take the Weyrleader his klah, would you?"

"You're still treating me like a weyrling, Los," said the young rider, but he deftly relieved Valonna of the heavy pitcher with a quick smile.

"You'll always be a weyrling to me," C'los replied good-naturedly.

The exchange was almost lost on Valonna. She could only watch with dismay as T'rello delivered the klah to L'dro.

"Don't worry about _him_ ," said C'los, picking up his own jug. "The sun don't shine so bright out his…ah, come on, before this goes cold."

Valonna couldn't think of a way to turn the green rider down, and C'los' hand on her shoulder was quite firm. Unresisting, but anxious about what L'dro would say, Valonna found herself guided through the dining tables to where C'los and his weyrmate had claimed a space amongst the morning chaos.

The rider with blue cords twisted through his shoulder-knot shook his head as they approached. "I send you out for klah and you come back with the Weyrwoman. What are you trying to do to me, C'los?"

The green rider's grin widened still further. "Mine, you know I always deliver more than I promise."

C'mine smiled tolerantly at his weyrmate, and then looked up at Valonna. "Good morning, Weyrwoman. Will you sit down?"

C'los pulled a chair out from the table with a flourish. "See, he's so humble he even lets people sit down in his presence."

"You still need to work on the subtlety, Los," C'mine said mildly. He was pouring klah as he spoke, adding sugar to one, and sugar and milk to a second. "Weyrwoman?"

It took Valonna a moment to realise that he was asking her how she took her klah. "Oh...only milk, thank you."

C'mine added some to the third steaming mug – not too much, not too little – and pushed it in her direction.

They all drank, and then C'los asked, "Did you have plans for the day, Weyrwoman?"

Valonna was settling a little into her responses, taking an obscure courage from being far enough across the dining cavern to be out of L'dro's sight. "I thought I might do some work on the hangings in my weyr," she said. Then, because it sounded so inane, she added, "I think they've been there since the Pass."

"Are you doing anything tonight?" asked C'mine.

"Tonight? Well, I'm.…"

"We're providing the credibility for one of Jenavally's musical evenings," said C'los. "You know, the 'come along and sing even though you're tone-deaf and you're liable to set half the dragons howling' things."

"Did you speak to A'len about our set?" C'mine asked his weyrmate.

C'los shrugged. "Indioth put the message through to Chyilth. They've been at Southern. I'm not worried, he's never let us down before."

"A'len's our drummer," C'mine explained to Valonna. "He was a real Harper before he was Searched."

"Harper!" C'los snorted. "He just likes to hit things."

Valonna seldom stayed in the dining hall long after the evening meal. "Do you play?"

"We try," said C'mine. "A'len's the only one with formal training, but we muddle through."

"I never wanted to be a Harper," C'los added, "but you can't live at the Hall and not pick up the music."

"You should come along," said C'mine. "It's not as painful as Los makes out."

Kind as their invitation was, the situation sounded intimidating. "Thank you, but I think I'll be busy tonight."

"You will. Your weyr need cleaning, doesn't it."

L'dro's voice, flat with displeasure, almost made Valonna jump out of her skin. It was with trepidation that she turned to the handsome Weyrleader, forcing a nervous smile. "I was just saying..."

"You know, L'dro, rest days apply to everyone in the Weyr," said C'los, with a hint of force in his voice that startled Valonna. "Including the Weyrwoman."

L'dro's grey eyes narrowed. "You'd do well to remember your place, green rider," he said, placing unnecessary emphasis on that title. "And mine."

"No need for formality with us, L'dro," C'los said lightly, although there was a hard look in his eyes that belied his easy tone.

"We've known each other too long," C'mine added.

The Weyrleader looked sharply at the blue rider, as if to reprimand him, but if there had been any hint of menace or disdain in C'mine's tone, Valonna hadn't noticed it.

L'dro focused on her instead, gripping the back of her chair with one big hand. "You shouldn't be associating with this sort, Valonna. Stick to bronze riders."

"I'm a bronze rider."

The new voice from over L'dro's shoulder took him by surprise. L'dro turned to confront the newcomer, and immediately the blackest of looks crossed his face.

The rider facing him, bare arms folded, displayed no discernible expression at all.

The Weyrleader laughed shortly. "Hardly a bronze rider, T'kamen. Not even a Wingleader."

Valonna wasn't personally acquainted with the bronze rider, but she knew _of_ him. There were fewer than two dozen bronze riders at Madellon, and this man was one of only three who didn't hold rank of any kind. The cord he wore on his shoulder was a worn double strand of Madellon indigo and bronze, and she knew that the epaulettes on his riding jacket bore only the single stripe of a wingrider.

T'kamen regarded the Weyrleader in silence a moment longer. Not taking his eyes off L'dro, he said quietly, "C'los, C'mine. Weyrwoman."

"T'kamen," C'los acknowledged the greeting, and C'mine nodded.

"I'm still your Weyrleader, T'kamen," said L'dro, in the threatening tone that chilled Valonna to the bone.

"I'm still a bronze rider," T'kamen replied evenly, and finally removing his steady gaze from L'dro, he stepped past the Weyrleader and took the seat next to C'mine.

"Don't turn your back on me, rider!"

L'dro's bark silenced the idle chatter of the dining hall as riders and Weyrfolk all around turned to look at their Weyrleader.

Valonna wanted to shrink away from her weyrmate. L'dro's rage had ever been swift and visible. But T'kamen appeared unfazed. "Look to yourself, Weyrleader," he said, over his shoulder.

Valonna knew she should do something. She should go with L'dro, distance him from the rider raising his ire – anything to defuse the situation. People were watching.

Then, outside, Shimpath roared, and immediately dozens of draconic voices responded. Flustered, Valonna reached for her dragon's mind. _Shimpath, what is it?_

_Tell Pierdeth's rider I'm upset,_ the queen replied, quite calmly.

Valonna swallowed hard, but Shimpath's direct intervention gave her courage. "Weyrleader, Shimpath's upset. Please calm down."

L'dro shot her a look of frank surprise. "I won't have my queen disturbed, T'kamen!"

The lean bronze rider gazed at Valonna for a long moment. Then he inclined his head to the Weyrwoman. "My apologies to you and your queen, Weyrwoman." He placed slight emphasis on _your_.

"Weyrleader?"

The new voice belonged to D'feng. Valonna could see the older bronze rider's disapproving expression as he stared at T'kamen. "Weyrleader, might I suggest you rejoin the _Council_ bronze riders in discussion of the Weyr?"

Valonna saw the ghost of an ironic smile touch T'kamen's face.

"See to your dragon, Valonna," L'dro ordered her, and with a final glower at T'kamen's uncaring back, the Weyrleader turned and strode back to the head table.

C'los let out his breath. "You're living dangerously, Kamen."

"He can't demote me any further," the bronze rider shrugged.

"You say that as if it's a good thing."

"No," T'kamen conceded. "But there's no point in pushing for a promotion with the Council the way it is now. There's only one way I'll ever be able to make a difference."

Valonna suddenly became very conscious of C'mine's perceptive gaze, and with a start she realised what T'kamen was talking about.

"Kamen," the blue rider said quietly, still looking at Valonna, "mind your manners."

T'kamen looked at C'mine for a moment, and then turned his fiercely brown gaze on Valonna. "I'm sorry, Weyrwoman. I meant no offence."

Valonna heard herself speak. "None was taken, bronze rider."

T'kamen's stare lasted a moment longer, and then he rose from the bench with lithe grace. "My duty," he said curtly, and stalked off.

She watched him leave, and then heard herself say, "He didn't have any breakfast."

C'mine sighed, and C'los grinned. "T'kamen never has any breakfast," the green rider said. "You think the man could stay that skinny on three square meals a day?"

* * *

Epherineth looked up, and although the bronze made no sound, T'kamen knew that two dragons had just appeared in the sky above. Their greeting bugles cut across the air a moment later, scaring the beasts in the field below into a stampede. He eased himself to his feet from where he had been resting against his dragon's powerful fore-claw.

Darshanth and Indioth landed side by side, both dragons dwarfed but not intimidated by their larger brother. T'kamen allowed himself a smile as their riders dismounted. He had known C'los and C'mine since long before any of them had Impressed. As long as twenty Turns ago, Taskamen, Carellos, and Cairmine had been inseparable, and their dragons reflected the bond.

C'los, the elder of the pair, loosened his riding jacket against the hot sun as he dismounted, revealing the gaudy green and yellow shirt he wore underneath. The green rider was colourful in most respects. Unapologetically loud and extroverted, C'los loved to be the centre of attention, and his talkative, open nature made him many friends, but the colour of his dragon blinded many to the complexity of the man behind the garrulous, garish front. C'los was as sharp and devious a man as T'kamen had ever known. The green rider had never been entirely candid about the exact nature of the training he had received at the Harperhall as a youth, even to his closest friends, but T'kamen had his suspicions. C'los had an uncanny instinct for reading method and motive, for sensing trends of opinion and, where necessary, manipulating them to his benefit. There was irony in the colour of his dragon. Indioth was as simple and sincere a dragon as her rider was brilliant and cagey. But C'los had never been prepared to accept a life of quiet anonymity as a mere green rider, and he wasn't above causing a scene to make his voice heard.

By contrast, C'mine cut a subdued figure. Shorter, more conservatively-dressed, and less obviously good-looking than his weyrmate, Darshanth's rider tended to fade unobtrusively into the background. A casual observer might have dismissed him as less intelligent, less forceful, less influential than his weyrmate. T'kamen knew better. The blue rider was his most steadfast and reliable friend: loyal, compassionate, and not nearly so aggravating as C'los. If he had a fault, it was that he rarely took a side on any matter, and it was sometimes hard to know if he had an opinion of his own at all. It was only natural that the blue rider's extreme empathic sensitivity was reflected in his dragon. Darshanth was more daring and flirtatious than his rider, a devoted chaser of greens, but the badge on C'mine's riding jacket bore an embroidered gold S: the mark of a Search rider.

The two riders had been a fixture in T'kamen's life for so long that he could hardly remember what it had been like without them. They had played together as children, stood together as candidates, trained together as weyrlings. They were the brothers he had never had, and they had shaped his beliefs about dragons and dragonriders. Class consciousness was heightened among the Weyrbred and all but forced upon those who Impressed, but T'kamen had resisted the pressure. He'd known C'mine and C'los long before Epherineth, Darshanth, and Indioth had labelled each of them with the colours of their hides, and he'd had no intention of treating them any differently because he'd Impressed a bronze and they hadn't.

"You're late," he remarked tolerantly as the two riders approached.

"Leah didn't want to let him go," said C'los, nodding at his weyrmate. "I don't know why I went to the trouble of having a daughter. She acts like she's his."

"How's Robyn?" T'kamen asked.

"Well. Asked after you." C'los gave him a hard look. "I told her you've been flirting with disaster again."

"No need to speak of our Weyrwoman that way," said C'mine.

T'kamen reached up to rub Epherineth's neck in response to an unspoken request as his friends leaned against Darshanth's side. "She doesn't have any idea of how to behave."

"I don't know what Fianine was thinking when she stepped down," said C'los

"Fianine was dying when she stepped down," C'mine reminded him.

C'los shrugged. "Senior Weyrwomen generally are, or they wouldn't be retiring. But Valonna's hardly who we were hoping for in the next Weyrwoman."

The indirect reference made T'kamen stiffen, and he saw C'mine throw C'los a reproachful look. "Fianine never had much time for her," he said shortly. "Especially not in the last few months. Too busy dying." The words sounded harsh, but he knew they understood. He had respected the formidable Weyrwoman, and sincerely mourned her loss.

"You think she's a totally lost cause?" asked C'los.

"I don't know. Maybe." T'kamen thumped Epherineth's neck, half in emphasis, half to express his discontent. "I can't see her ever being a strong Weyrwoman in her own right."

"Being treated like a drudge by L'dro isn't helping," C'mine pointed out.

"Since when has L'dro helped anyone besides himself?" T'kamen shook his head in disgust. "Scaling down tithes in return for personal favours? Exchanging a decent standard of living for all riders in favour of luxury for himself and his lackeys?"

"He's taking that too far, now," said C'los. "Mine, tell him."

"I need to replace Darshanth's harness," said the blue rider. "I went down to the Tannery for the hide yesterday. Mannis doesn't have anything. The hide tithes have been cut by two thirds in the last two Turns. I'm going to have to stop by the Tannerhall on the way back to the Weyr and trade for what I need."

"Faranth...I didn't think he'd compromise rider safety like that." T'kamen made himself unclench his fists. "What would he do if we had weyrlings needing to practise making straps? Tell them to get it right the first time or suffer the consequences?"

"It's lucky there hasn't been a clutch since 94, or we might have found out," said C'los. The green rider paused, looking at Epherineth. "But then, if you're reading _him_ right, it might not be much longer till the next one."

T'kamen looked up at his dragon. Epherineth cocked his head slightly, his eye gleaming half-sapphire, half-emerald. "If he feels it, so does Pierdeth."

"But Pierdeth hasn't necessarily impressed that upon L'dro," said C'los, slowly and carefully, as if he was explaining it to a small child. "That's why it was so stupid of you to draw attention to yourself this morning."

Ignoring the exaggerated condescension, T'kamen looked at C'mine. "Think he'd accuse me of immaturity if I said he started it?"

"Almost certainly," said C'mine.

"He started it."

C'los rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Everything _I_ did this morning was part of the bigger plan. What _you_ did wasn't."

"I'm sure you'll forgive me." T'kamen shook his head, becoming serious again. "If Shimpath would just rise…"

"You don't want that yet, Kamen," said C'los. "Trust me, you don't. For a start, the entire Council is against you…"

"Only by default," said T'kamen. "Some of them don't like L'dro much more than we do."

"…the queen chose based on rider preference last time…"

"Pierdeth caught her early. Epherineth's the better dragon, and we know Pierdeth's tricks now."

"It's still the Interval, Kamen," said C'los. "If Thread was falling you'd have a chance on Epherineth's merit alone, but the criteria are different for us. Pern doesn't want strong clutches. The Holds aren't going to increase tithes to indulge over-productive dragons. A long flight means a bigger clutch, and a bigger clutch means less to go around."

"There was always enough to go around when Fianine was Weyrwoman," said T'kamen.

C'los shrugged. "She tyrannised the Holds as well as the Weyr. And she limited the Council's power by instigating a change of Weyrleader every time Cherganth rose. The bronze riders were always so busy competing for her favour they never had a chance to unite against her. The current Council's authority is a recent institution, T'kamen, but it relies on letting L'dro treat Valonna the way he does. They don't want another strong Weyrwoman. And L'dro has them balanced just right – he looks after his supporters well enough that it's in their interests to keep him where he is."

T'kamen frowned, running a reflexive hand through his hair. "Then if the key to winning Shimpath's next flight is Council endorsement, you're saying we haven't got a chance?"

"You can't offer the senior members of the Council anything that they don't already have under L'dro," said C'los.

He laughed, shortly and without humour. "How about a Weyrleader with some integrity?"

"To limit their powers?" C'los shook his head. "L'dro's a tail-fork, Kamen, but he knows how to keep his people loyal. I can only think of three bronze riders who would speak out against him openly. T'rello's still a kid, R'hren was ineffective even when he was Weyrleader…"

"And the third?"

"That's you, T'kamen," said C'los, with a long-suffering sigh.

"So don't target the bronze riders."

T'kamen and C'los turned to look at C'mine. True to form, the blue rider had kept out of the debate, and it was easy to forget he was there, but he invariably listened to every word.

"There are ten other dragons for every Madellon bronze," C'mine continued unhurriedly.

"Did you have a point, or were you just going to state the obvious?" C'los asked impatiently.

C'mine looked at his weyrmate with no change in expression. "Indioth's green, you know. Have you ever noticed how many greens there are?"

"Mine..."

"Let him finish, Los," T'kamen interrupted.

The blue rider's expression still didn't change, but his eyes were laughing. "You can't win over the Council riders because they already have everything they want. So look to those who aren't happy with the Weyrleadership. I'm not the only one who's going to have to barter for harness leather because L'dro's renegotiated the tithes."

T'kamen regarded C'mine keenly. "You think I should be looking for support amongst the unranked riders?"

"None of us are ranked," C'mine replied. "And that's never stopped Los from getting involved in Weyr politics."

"Of course," C'los muttered. His eyes had narrowed as he considered the possibilities of his weyrmate's suggestion. "If we can just convince enough of the other wingriders that their opinion counts…"

"You're not the only rider in the Weyr who has issues with L'dro's leadership, Kamen," said C'mine. "You're just the one who's best placed to do something about it."

"And if Valonna can be brought round too…" C'los slapped his hands suddenly together. "We get L'dro from both sides, above and below. He won't know what's hit him."

T'kamen frowned. "She's the one who chose him in the first place."

"Yes, but don't you think she regrets it?"

"If she had an ounce of sense, she would, but that's debatable."

"It's not as if she'd have to face up to L'dro directly," said C'los. "Just influence Shimpath against Pierdeth."

T'kamen shook his head. "She doesn't have the confidence, and no queen is going to be influenced by half measures in flight."

"Confidence can be strengthened over time," C'mine said thoughtfully. "Valonna's never been given a chance to assert herself. A queen wouldn't choose a rider without the potential to be strong. She just needs a chance. She's very young, Kamen. Very young."

"You'd take her in hand, C'mine?" T'kamen asked intently.

"I'll do what I can, Kamen." The blue rider fixed him with a steady look. "But she wouldn't welcome another Weyrleader who only cares about because of the colour of her dragon."

"I'm not going to say I love her because of the colour of her dragon either, C'mine," T'kamen replied flatly.

"I didn't say anything about love," said C'mine. "But you can't use her to gain the Weyrleadership without giving something back." The blue rider paused, and added, "I'll talk to her."

"There are a few brown riders who'd be worth approaching," C'los mused aloud, apparently oblivious to what they had been saying. "The ones that L'dro and the Council have overlooked for promotion when they're well qualified."

T'kamen nodded. "I'll speak to T'rello and R'hren."

"And Fr'ton."

He winced at the name. "I can't argue with L'dro on him. I wouldn't put him in a position of responsibility, either."

"I know, but he rides a bronze, and he has no strong ties to L'dro. You don't have to trust him with anything; just have him stand around with Peteorth, being supportive."

"You're assuming he can follow that complex an instruction, Los."

"Leave him alone," C'mine said mildly. "There are worse riders in the Weyr. Should we be getting on?"

C'los glanced up at the sun. "You're probably right, Mine, or the Tannerhall will have closed up for the night. Coming to Blue Shale, Kamen?"

"C'los," said C'mine.

T'kamen had tensed automatically at the name of the Hold, as he always did. Then, gently, he placed a hand on his dragon's neck. "No, I think I'd better let Epherineth digest a little longer."

The green rider heaved a dramatic sigh, rolling his eyes. "You're so predictable, Kamen. Fine. Be like that." He started towards Indioth, then stopped and turned back to call, "But be late for tonight at your own risk!"

C'mine chuckled as he turned to mount Darshanth, and T'kamen settled himself between Epherineth's forearms, muttering, "Go _between_ , C'los."


	3. Chapter Two

C'los and C'mine and their dragons weyred in a series of caves set into the north face of the Bowl, enjoying amenities of which most such lowly-ranked pairings could only dream. It had once belonged to a bronze rider, T'hone – one of the founding riders of Madellon – and he had owed them a favour. He had left them all his possessions, and that included the weyr he had carved out of the rock for himself some ninety Turns before. With Madellon underpopulated, the demand for Flightleader-standard Weyrs was low, and it had slipped beneath the Weyrleader's note that the two wingriders were sharing such opulent quarters.

As T'kamen weaved through the throng packing the living area from wall to wall, he conceded that the pair threw mean parties. Everything breakable vanished into storage alcoves, kegs of beer and skins of wine materialised with miraculous speed, and no one ever staggered off the weyr ledge. It wasn't far to the ground, but as a precaution they had Indioth and Darshanth mind the ledge.

In the normal course of events, C'los and C'mine wouldn't specifically invite guests so much as make the right people aware of the event to ensure the desired turnout. On this occasion, though, T'kamen knew that every guest had been invited personally, in accordance with C'los' plans.

Even after so many Turns of association, the extent of C'los' passion for intrigue could still surprise T'kamen. The razor-sharp intellect and instinct that lay behind that friendly demeanour and open smile had seen the green rider in a frenzy of activity since their meeting near Kellad the previous sevenday. C'los had drawn up colour-coded lists and charts and graphs, most of them covered in notes scrawled in coded shorthand, documenting the probable opinions of each of Madellon's riders, the eight Weyr Masters, and various other notable individuals. T'kamen didn't pretend to understand half of the diagrams C'los had shown him to explain his plans, but he trusted the green rider to know what he was doing.

There were only slightly more than two hundred dragonpairs in the Weyr, and somewhat fewer than thirty riders standing around C'los and C'mine's weyr, but T'kamen still didn't know most of the guests. He recognised them, by face and mostly by name, but he had never been as sociable as his friends, and with half a dozen exceptions they were all strangers to him. The situation made him slightly uncomfortable. T'kamen preferred the company of his dragon, and his own thoughts, to that of a crowd, but C'los had insisted. He wasn't there to enjoy himself, after all.

The Weyrwoman was conspicuous by her absence. T'kamen gathered that she had been the source of some contention between C'los and C'mine, with C'los asserting that she should be there and C'mine steadfastly rejecting the idea. T'kamen could see both sides of the argument, but he was inclined to agree with C'mine. C'los could be overzealous at times, and Valonna probably wouldn't react well to such an overtly political gathering. C'mine had won, of course, as he always did on the rare occasions when he made a stand against his weyrmate

T'kamen might not have been able to fathom the more obscure aspects of C'los' scheme, but he could understand the reasoning behind most of the riders he did know. R'hren had served as interim Weyrleader in the period between Fianine's death and Shimpath's first mating flight, but on L'dro's accession the older bronze rider had been effectively sidelined. R'hren had been allowed to retain his Flightleader rank, but T'kamen knew he had been put under pressure from L'dro and D'feng to retire. There were two Wingleaders loyal to L'dro ready to take control of his Flight, and an ambitious young brown rider poised to assume command of his Wing. R'hren was well into his eighth decade, but neither he nor his Staamath were frail, and their pride resented L'dro's interference. Madellon was fortunate to have a senior rider so stubborn. R'hren was probably only resisting the pressure on him to resign to be contrary, but as long as he did, his Flight remained in opposition to the Weyrleader.

T'rello had Impressed Santinoth, the only bronze of Shimpath and Pierdeth's clutch, slightly more than four Turns ago at the age of twelve. He was ostensibly thought too young for the responsibilities of a Wingsecond, but in truth, he was suppressed because of his connections with C'los and C'mine. The lad was bright and very able, and a few more Turns would give him the experience he needed to take on a Wing. T'kamen could feel the young man's potential, despite his youth, and considered him a valuable ally.

Fr'ton, bronze Peteorth's rider, was standing near one of the ale kegs with a slightly bemused expression on his face. T'kamen made a mental note not to get too close. It wasn't that he didn't _like_ Fr'ton...well, actually, he amended mentally, it was. Fr'ton seemed quite oblivious to everything that went on around him, and T'kamen had wondered on more than one occasion what had possessed Peteorth to choose him. It was rumoured that Fr'ton had taken so long to grasp the basics of _between_ visualisation that he had been kept back from graduation with his weyrling class for an entire Turn. It was perhaps a kindness that he didn't seem aware of his status as the Weyr joke.

L'stev had served as Weyrlingmaster for the last four classes of weyrlings and, in the Turns between clutches, as T'kamen's Wingsecond. L'dro had tolerated him as Weyrlingmaster of Pierdeth's first clutch, but the Weyrleader had denied the gruff, abrasive brown rider his Wingsecond rank after the graduation of the class. L'stev had never been afraid to speak his mind, commanded instant, automatic respect from almost every dragonpair to have training under him, and was completely loyal to T'kamen. That was what had made him a target of L'dro's spite, but L'stev was still one of the most reliable and experienced riders T'kamen had ever known, a fund of common sense, and brusquely good-humoured underneath the constant affected scowl that had terrorised several generations of weyrlings.

Jenavally, the Weyr Singer, had been an ally ever since T'kamen had Impressed. Herself a journeyman Harper before unexpectedly Impressing her green, she had a unique perspective on Weyr and Craft relations. Under Fianine as Weyrwoman, the green rider had been given permission to return to the Harper Hall for further instruction, and over the Turns had qualified for her full Mastery, although as a dragonrider she could not take the title. She had ably assisted and supplemented Tovan, Madellon's assigned Master Harper, until Fianine's death and L'dro's accession to the Weyrleadership. D'feng had dismissed Tovan back to the Hall for reassignment, appointing Jenavally as his sole replacement. The Flightleader's explanation was that by doing so, Jenavally would be allowed to 'play to her strengths'. No one had been fooled. Appointing a rider as Weyr Singer meant there was no Harper loyal to the Hall to criticise L'dro's methods.

T'kamen, C'mine, and C'los all had links to the Harpercraft. C'los had been born there, his unique talents had been developed by Harper Masters, and his thirteen-Turn-old daughter seemed sure to be apprenticed. C'mine had been brought up at Kellad, the hold to which the Harperhall looked. And T'kamen himself, trader-born, had spent every winter of his life there, pre-Impression. Jenavally had naturally been inclined to associate with the three of them, and her connections in the Craft were potentially invaluable.

T'kamen scanned the rest of the guests, occasionally asking Epherineth to identify riders. J'vondan was an outspoken brown rider who, despite his Turns of service, had never been promoted to Wingsecond. B'stroc and Pettra were a weyrmated pair who had been consistently denied the use of a ground-level weyr in which to bring up their children on the grounds that it wasn't traditional. Chuvone had Impressed a dragon of Epherineth and Pierdeth's clutch and lost him flying under L'dro in weyrling manoeuvres. The Weyr Tanner, Mannis, had been hard hit by the reductions in hide tithes. Gelsian and Wenvo had both enjoyed L'dro's favours until they had conceived his children and been put callously aside. C'mine had been right. The Weyrleader had many enemies, but few with the facility to do any more than complain about him in private.

C'los drifted closer. "Let me fill that up for you," he murmured, taking T'kamen's almost untouched cup.

T'kamen watched as C'los made a show of refilling his drink. "Nice turn-out you have here," he said. "Malcontents and underachievers."

"You're the biggest underachiever of them all, T'kamen," said C'los. "But like you, it's not their fault."

"Ch'vone can hardly blame L'dro for losing his dragon. We both know how he used to fly."

"Perhaps," C'los conceded. "But a dragonless man has enough to blame himself for. If it gives him any peace to blame another..."

"And the women who had his children? Green riders. They have no one to blame but themselves."

"Bearing the Weyrleader's child has always carried a certain prestige. They weren't to know L'dro would throw them over for it." C'los shook his head. "You need to be more objective. These people will be behind you when Shimpath rises."

T'kamen made himself relax as he accepted his wine cup back from C'los. "It seems insincere to accept the support of people I don't respect."

"No one ever said politics would leave you with a clean conscience, T'kamen," said C'los. "You want a chance at Shimpath when she rises, you need more than just me and Mine on your side." Then, at the approach of two riders, he clapped T'kamen meaningfully on the shoulder and raised his voice. "A'kul, Lishen, have you met T'kamen…?"

* * *

L'dro had come in late and left early. Valonna, as usual on the occasions when the Weyrleader shared her bed, had stayed where she was until she was sure he was gone. If he had simply got up for a drink or to relieve himself, he wouldn't have been pleased to return to an empty bed, and she hated upsetting him.

But Shimpath had reported sleepily, _He has gone to the lake_ , with the particular emphasis on 'he' that Valonna knew meant L'dro. The queen never referred to him by name, nor even by title: only as 'Pierdeth's rider', when she deigned to speak of him at all. It was a point on which dragon and rider had often argued; needless to say, Valonna had never convinced Shimpath to change her mind.

She bathed and dressed, braided her hair with the deft speed of practice, then ventured out onto the ledge. Shimpath rested back on her haunches there, serene and beautiful, her hide as golden as the buttery sunlight that shafted into the Bowl from the east. "Good morning, Shimpath."

The queen lowered her huge head to her rider, exhaling a soft warm breath over her. _Good morning, Valonna_.

Valonna caressed the sleek muzzle, flattening her hands against the smooth, brilliantly golden skin, leaning her forehead against her dragon's nose. _Do you want to bathe today?_

Shimpath hesitated, her eyes turning green as she swivelled her head to look in the direction of the lake. _Perhaps later._

Valonna followed her dragon's gaze. Pierdeth wallowed in the shallows, his wings half spread as his rider bathed him.

The Weyrleader's bronze was a superb beast. Valonna still remembered the first time she had laid eyes on the huge dragon, landing majestically in the courtyard of Jessaf Hold with his Wing behind him. All the dragons had been awesome, but the one great bronze, stocky with muscle and nearly half as large again as the biggest brown, had drawn every eye.

Valonna had discovered much later that a blue dragon had chosen her from among the other girls of the Hold, but L'dro had singled her out personally, and the instant when the handsome bronze rider had pronounced her suitability for Search had been the single best moment of the fourteen-Turn-old Valonna's life. Riding Pierdeth, mounted in front of the Wingleader on the smooth, warm bronze neck, had been an unthinkable joy; _between_ a terrifying shock, but her gratitude to L'dro, and her awe of him, had coloured her first three Turns at Madellon.

But how was a girl, shy and quiet even in her home Hold, supposed to adjust to being the absolute focus of all the sexual and political tensions of twenty bronze riders? How could she have known that the bronze rider to whom she owed her marvellous bond with Shimpath would become so cold to her as soon as his dragon had flown her queen? How was she meant to cope with the pressures of being the only queen rider in the Weyr, her predecessor having died without giving her any significant training in the duties that being Weyrwoman would entail?

L'dro still held sway over her. His rugged stature and handsome good looks had captivated her from the first moment. Tall and broad in the shoulder, the Weyrleader conveyed a sense of easy strength and confidence. The rich, deep blue and emerald green tunics he favoured contrasted effectively with his daringly long red-brown hair. Even on the worst days, when he treated her as if her very existence offended him, when he made her feel unworthy to ride her queen, when she despaired that she had ever been anything to him save a route to power, she knew she owed him everything, and some tiny part of her clung to the hope that one day he would treat her right, that deep down inside, bold, dashing L'dro really did love her.

Shimpath was too perceptive to be unaware of Valonna's ambiguous feelings regarding L'dro, and she showed no overt affection for her bronze mate. But Pierdeth was such a magnificent specimen of dragonkind. Even now, watching L'dro care for his beast in a rare moment of tenderness, Valonna could see the condition in the shining brown-gold hide, the supple strength and density of muscle, the rugged, powerful conformation. The strongest, fastest, cleverest bronze won the queen: how many times had Valonna heard that? But she knew that the Weyr could influence the queen's choice too, and L'dro's support among the senior riders was almost unanimous.

Even if Shimpath was caught by a different bronze the next time she rose – and Valonna trembled even at the thought of such treachery – there was little to choose between the other bronze riders. Most of the Wingleaders supported L'dro, content to keep him as Weyrleader when the rewards for loyalty were so apparent. The old Weyrleader, R'hren, had as little time for Valonna as had his weyrmate before him. The remaining, unranked bronze riders were out of contention.

Valonna didn't even like to entertain such thoughts at length while Shimpath was awake. Weyrwoman Fianine had, at least, given her instructions on how to behave when Shimpath rose to mate. Valonna was terrified of somehow wrongly influencing her dragon in flight and driving the queen _between_ with her own fears. She had wanted Pierdeth to win Shimpath's first flight, and even with all that had happened since then, Valonna was afraid of sharing a flight with any but the man she knew, and still loved. She might not be comfortable with the bed she had made, but try as she might, she could think of no alternative other than to lie in it.

* * *

_Pierdeth and Sejanth have left the Weyr._

C'mine looked up from the painstaking work of repairing his worn riding straps. "You're sure they've gone?"

Darshanth replied with casual certainty. _Vallenth is on watch. She says Pierdeth said they can be found at Kellad Hold if they are needed today._

He rose from where he had been sitting against the curve of his dragon's neck and took the half-finished piece of work inside. "Would you ask Shimpath if her rider would mind a visitor?"

_Of course._

"Politely."

There was a long silence. C'mine frowned as he stowed his leather-working tools away. "Darshanth?"

_Shush_ , the blue told him. Then, after a moment longer, _You may go to Shimpath's weyr._

"What were you two talking about?"

_Dragon things_. _Do you want a lift?_

"No, I'll walk. I think there are still enough bronze riders around who would query even a blue on Shimpath's ledge."

Darshanth lifted his chin off the ledge enough to watch him walk towards the short flight of steps that led to the ground, his eyes placidly green. _What bronze ever notices a mere blue?_

C'mine paused to stroke his dragon's silky silver-blue neck fondly. _All the ones we beat in mating flights._

Darshanth snorted in amusement and knocked his rider's hand away. _I beat them. Not you. Shimpath's rider is waiting._

C'mine crossed the Bowl to Valonna's weyr, glancing up as the shadows of the dragons drilling overhead fell upon him. C'los and Indioth were up there, flying on the extreme left of the formation, as usual. C'mine absently wondered if the green was due to come into season again soon. He had a very poor memory for her schedule, but it seemed to him that it had been a while. C'los would know. C'mine made a mental note to ask.

"Good morning, Shimpath," he murmured politely to the queen as he stepped onto her weyr ledge. Then he raised his voice slightly. "Valonna?"

"I'm here," the Weyrwoman called, from inside.

C'mine entered the weyr, squinting through the darkness. The young queen rider was hovering awkwardly, as if uncertain of how to behave. It was still an improvement on the flustered stammering that had greeted him the first few times he had initiated conversation. It didn't help that Valonna was so small. Fianine had been tall, giving her an impressive physical presence to match her personality, but the young Weyrwoman stood barely taller than C'mine's shoulder, and he wasn't tall. Valonna's slightness was emphasised by her pale blonde, intricately braided hair and light coloration: fair skin, and blue-grey eyes. She looked younger than she was, despite the formal richness of a gown that a Lady Holder would not have rejected. Valonna's overall demeanour was one of vulnerability, and C'mine had never been good at being unkind. "How are you?"

"Fine," Valonna affirmed, in a tone that told C'mine she was not. "I'm fine."

"Shimpath's looking well," the blue rider continued.

Valonna looked down, and then up again, smiling with genuine pleasure at the compliment to her dragon. "She wants to bathe, later."

"I can't blame her, in this weather," C'mine agreed amiably. He glanced back out at the golden dragon. "She's at least the size Cherganth was. Nice agile conformation, too. You only have to look at T'rello's bronze to see she's passed that on."

"I thought he might have been more stocky because of..."

Shimpath rumbled, and Valonna stopped, her face falling.

"The sire?" C'mine prompted, and then continued before she could withdraw again. Getting her to talk about dragons was the best way to coax her out of herself. "You can see the muscle mass of the blues and browns came from him, but the greens seem to have taken Shimpath's build, and Santinoth has that brightness of hers in his hide."

Valonna seemed to relax again. "How's Darshanth?" she asked, with sincerity that belied her normally timid exterior.

"Full of himself, as usual," C'mine replied. "He won't tell me what he's been saying to your queen. I don't trust him around the ladies."

The Weyrwoman actually giggled, and C'mine was reminded forcefully of the girl's youth. "I'm serious," he said earnestly. "Dragons and humans. He likes nothing better than having women fuss over him."

"Doesn't Indioth get jealous?" Valonna asked.

"No. She has her own flock of admirers." C'mine paused, and then added, "I think they, like Los and me, just like to have someone friendly to come home to."

Valonna was silent for a moment as that gentle truth sank in.

"Why don't you come over and indulge my blue?" C'mine suggested. "If Shimpath doesn't mind, I know Darshanth would love to see you."

The queen rider's gaze flicked automatically to the empty space on the weyr ledge where Pierdeth customarily alighted. "I don't know..." Then her eyes went briefly vague. "Although Shimpath says I should..."

"There you go," C'mine told her. "Don't ever argue with a queen dragon."

He led Valonna the scenic route, along the edge of the lake, rather than crossing too close to the low level weyrs of ranking bronze and brown riders. A couple of dragons were diving at the far end of the lake, near the empty weyrling barracks.

C'mine decided to try a different tack. "Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live during a Pass, Valonna?"

"Sometimes, I suppose," she replied uncertainly. "Do you?"

He nodded. "It's crossed my mind a few times. I'm not sure I'd want to, though. Threadfall's so dangerous. We're not used to dragons dying. Do you remember when G'stor died the other month?" At Valonna's shudder, C'mine went on. "We only lose a dragon when the rider dies of age or illness, or if there's an accident in drills, or when there are weyrlings. During a Pass, I guess there'd be dragons dying most Falls." Then, because it was a rather sombre subject, he continued, "Of course, there'd be more clutches. And more queens. Do you know much about Madellon's history?"

"I've read some in the Archives, but..." Valonna shook her head.

"C'los is the historian, really, but I've picked up a little from him." C'mine folded his arms, thinking. "The Weyr was founded just after the end of the last Pass, about ninety Turns ago. Southern had been struggling to protect all the inhabited parts of the South, and there were already plans to expand into the uninhabited areas of the continent, so the eight Weyrleaders decided to found two new Weyrs. One at the Peninsula, and one here, in the west." He touched the Weyr badge on the sleeve of his riding jacket, embossed with the westward-pointing compass arrow of Madellon. "It was just called Western Weyr at first, but for Turns it was known as M'dellon's Weyr – he was the first Weyrleader – and when he died, in about 26, the decision was made to call it Madellon Weyr. It was built a little in advance of the population spread, but the settlements had caught up to it within about a decade. So, like at the Peninsula, provision was made for a larger population than any of the Northern Weyrs." C'mine nodded at the many empty weyr openings. "Most Weyrs have four Flights at capacity: twelve wings, about four hundred dragons. Madellon has space for seven Flights – almost seven hundred dragons at full strength."

"Seven hundred?" asked Valonna. "We've only two hundred and twenty now."

C'mine hesitated, gauging the young queen rider's mood, and then said, "That's a good thing."

"Why is it good?"

He sighed mentally, wondering whether he should pity Valonna's ingenuousness or envy it, and then led the Weyrwoman up the steps to his and C'los' weyr. "Come on up."

Darshanth raised his head at their approach, humming a greeting to Valonna, and commenting to his rider, _You bring me such nice presents._

_Behave yourself._ "He thinks he's funny."

The blue ignored him and extended his head towards Valonna, nudging delicately at her hand until she raised it to rub his eye ridges. "He seems so small compared to Shimpath."

"Less to keep clean," said C'mine. He thoughtfully moved the tip of Darshanth's tail, stretched across the entrance to the cave, with one foot. "Will you come in and have a drink?"

Valonna nodded, and C'mine led the way into the weyr. "Excuse the mess," he said. "We had some friends over last night. Can I get you a cup of wine?"

There was plenty left from the party. C'mine poured for them both, then moved the harness he had been working on from the table. "Fixing straps," he explained.

"The Weyr Tanner makes mine," said Valonna.

C'mine sipped his wine, then said carefully, "It's a little difficult to get hold of the hide for new straps at the moment."

The Weyrwoman looked blank. "Is it?"

He picked up the neck strap he had been repairing, turning it over to show Valonna where the leather had already been patched and re-riveted several times. "There are a lot of harnesses looking like this in the Weyr right now."

The Weyrwoman shifted uneasily, clenching her fingers around the wine cup. "The Headwoman organises the hide tithes."

"Traditionally the Weyrwoman oversees all tithes," C'mine said gently, but he continued before the girl could retreat back into herself. "Fianine left a lot to the Headwoman. You still have ultimate authority, though."

Valonna looked even more uncomfortable. "L'dro negotiates with the Holds and Halls on tithe quantities."

C'mine hated being in this position, but he knew he was probably better equipped to talk to Valonna than either C'los or T'kamen. "Also a traditional duty of the Weyrwoman's."

The young queen rider went very still, her eyes downcast.

"Valonna." C'mine reached over and touched the girl's arm lightly. "You're young. Fianine died before her time, and you were pushed into being Weyrwoman before you'd even finished weyrling training. No one is criticising you: you've just never had a chance to learn all the ins and outs of your job."

"L'dro says that in an Interval it's the Weyrleader's duty and privilege to take the burden of responsibility off the Weyrwoman," said Valonna, as if reciting something she had heard many times.

Outside, Darshanth snorted, vocalising his rider's disgust. C'mine steadied his dragon, keeping a firm hold on his full opinion of the Weyrleader. "L'dro has always been fully aware of his privileges," he said. "But he doesn't ride the queen. His position isn't permanent."

Valonna tensed, and C'mine wondered if he had said too much too soon. "You and Shimpath, you're the real Weyrleaders," he went on. "There are twenty more bronzes, twenty more bronze riders, but only one Weyrwoman and only one queen. And Shimpath wouldn't have chosen you if you didn't have the right skills to lead the Weyr."

The young queen rider looked down at Darshanth's harness, her eyes running along the neatly spliced and repaired length. "I don't know how," she said finally, in a very small voice.

"Sure you do," C'mine assured her. "You just have to find out what has to be done, and then do it, or delegate." That was a gross simplification, but there was no point in overwhelming her. "You need some practice, is all."

"But the Headwoman..."

C'mine persisted, "The Headwoman is there to help you, Valonna, and she's a great resource, but you have one crucial advantage over her – you're a dragonrider. You understand dragon and rider needs better than Adrissa ever will. Like the need for a good stock of harness quality hide at the Weyr Tannery." He paused, sensing her torn loyalties, and added, "L'dro has so much to think about himself, he can't see to every detail. So that's where you can help him – with the little things he doesn't have time for."

"Do you really think I could help him?" Valonna asked.

"I know you could."

"How do I start?"

"Well, why don't you talk to your riders and find out what they need? Most of the bronze riders of this Weyr have enough influence to look after themselves, but I'm only a blue rider – the likes of my weyrmate and me could use a champion on the Council."

_Only a blue rider,_ Darshanth grumbled. _You'd be sorry if I was bronze._

"I don't know many riders who aren't on the Council."

"You know me," C'mine pointed out. "C'los and I can get you talking to the right people. Some of the female green riders, especially – L'dro might be Weyrleader, but he's never been a woman."

Valonna actually laughed at that, and C'mine relaxed, finally confident that he had hit his mark.

"You'll help me, though?" the queen rider asked him anxiously.

C'mine smiled. "Of course. Darshanth and I, and Indioth and C'los, are always here if you need us."

The young Weyrwoman smiled back, and there was suddenly more strength and character in that expression than C'mine had yet seen. _There's strength here, Darshanth. It's buried, but it's there._

The blue ignored his comment. _Only a blue rider!_ he muttered indignantly, half to himself. _What do you want from me? Blood?_


	4. Chapter Three

L'stev was the last rider to arrive, hurrying in with a slightly relieved expression. "I thought you'd start without me."

"Never happen," C'mine said from his corner, deadpan.

"All here and accounted for?" asked C'los.

T'kamen glanced around the weyr. The nine riders C'los had assembled were a motley bunch, not least himself – the only bronze rider in the Weyr to have been stripped of the command of his Wing. R'hren and T'rello were important as fellow bronze riders, Chuvone had first-hand experience of L'dro's unsuitability for leadership, and Jenavally's Craft connections gave her a unique perspective. C'los, C'mine and L'stev were irreplaceable. The only newcomer was V'rai, an older blue rider of L'dro's own Wing. T'kamen wasn't sure he trusted him yet, but C'los seemed to have faith in him.

"Well, I don't think I need to spell out what we want to achieve here," the green rider began.

"If you won't, I will," R'hren growled. "We need a new Weyrleader."

Everyone around the room muttered their agreement. T'kamen watched carefully to see if any of the others looked uneasy or uncertain. He caught C'los' eye, and the other rider nodded slightly.

"All right, since we're being open, it doesn't hurt to say that T'kamen here is our favoured candidate for the position," C'los went on. "With respect to you, R'hren, and you, T'rello, T'kamen is the most suitable bronze rider here to take on the duties of Weyrleader."

Again, old R'hren cut across C'los' caution. "Don't mangle words, green rider. I'm too old and this lad's too young. T'kamen has the experience, the dragon, and the motive to challenge L'dro's superiority."

"Excuse me," V'rai spoke up. "I'm sure this is a foolish question, but why exactly is there this enmity between you and L'dro, T'kamen? We've all got our reasons, but what's yours?"

"We Impressed from the same clutch," said T'kamen. "L'dro and I. C'los and C'mine, and Chuvone as well."

The dragonless man nodded his head vigorously. "Don't forget U'rane, T'kamen. Him too."

"U'rane?" asked V'rai.

"The other bronze rider from that class," said T'kamen. The ghost of a sad smile crossed his face. "He had the decency to die before he became a threat to L'dro."

R'hren gave a disgusted snort. "L'dro always was a belligerent little tail-fork, even before he Impressed. I remember U'rane. He was a nice lad."

"He was my brother," said Chuvone.

Everyone shifted uneasily at the former rider's vehemence. T'kamen wondered if the others were as subtly unnerved by Chuvone as he always had been. There was something disturbing about his gaze, something deeply unsettling about his demeanour – something obscene about the half-life lived by this crippled man. He felt the silent comfort of his dragon's mind wrap around his, understanding without words. He wouldn't want to go on without Epherineth.

Pushing the thought aside, T'kamen went on. "L'dro was competitive. Not always the best at everything, but he needed to think he was. He resented the fact that Epherineth and I sometimes did better."

"Sometimes?" Chuvone laughed bitterly. "Always. You never lost a dragon under your command."

T'kamen closed his eyes briefly, remembering that day. The death of Ch'vone's Gommeshath hadn't really been L'dro's fault, but T'kamen had overheard L'dro blustering to his friends, his cronies even then. Who cares, what's one blue less anyway?

"L'dro has always had a problem with the smaller colours," said C'los. "Blues and greens, mostly. The moment he Impressed a bronze, anything less was beneath him. I think he hated T'kamen for compromising his dignity as a bronze rider by having C'mine and me as friends. And hated us for being associated with the bronze rider who kept outstripping him." The green rider shrugged. "Maybe if it wasn't for us three, he wouldn't treat blue and green riders so badly."

"Speaking as one of his wingriders, I wouldn't say that he treats us badly," said V'rai. "He just doesn't treat us at all, other than the female green riders – and have you ever noticed that all the green riders in his Wing are young and female and pretty?"

"Without Thread, there's no drive to muster good fighting Wings," L'stev pointed out. "If Thread was falling, no bronze – and that includes yours, T'rello – would willingly take orders from a Wingleader brown who doesn't know his arse from his elbow. How many Wings drill with firestone more than once a fortnight?"

"Flame drill is hardly necessary at the midpoint of an Interval," R'hren objected.

"But if we get complacent and forget the technique, who's going to pass it on to the weyrlings a hundred Turns from now when the next Pass begins?" L'stev argued.

"We're getting off topic here," C'los interrupted. "But the distance from the Pass does influence leadership. We don't know how long it'll be before Shimpath rises again."

"Cherganth rose every four or five Turns," said R'hren.

"It's been more than four since Shimpath's first flight," said T'rello.

"You should remember," L'stev told the youngest rider, not unkindly.

"She's due any time now, then," said Chuvone.

"It'll be soon," said T'kamen, and felt Epherineth's concurrence.

R'hren nodded his agreement. "Even my old boy still knows when it's a queen's time, although I don't think he has a weyrling's chance in Threadfall against Shimpath."

"Epherineth tried for her the last time, didn't he, Kamen?" asked Jenavally. "How did Pierdeth beat him?"

T'kamen shook his head. "I don't remember much about that day."

"Short flight," said C'mine. "Small clutch."

"So Pierdeth got her early," C'los concluded. "Could be inexperience on Shimpath's part."

"Pierdeth is very strong," Jenavally mused. "He caught Hinnarioth once. Put on the speed early on. I doubt he'd have the stamina for a long queen flight. He's just such a big dragon."

"But if he can catch her fast he doesn't need stamina," said C'los.

"There's more to it than just stamina and speed," said C'mine. "L'dro Searched Valonna."

"Actually H'restin's blue did," V'rai said dryly. "He's our Search rider."

"But L'dro brought her in, I remember that," said R'hren. "That's always a big advantage, the gratitude of a young queen rider."

"But he treats her like a drudge," said Jenavally. "Worse than a drudge."

"She brings it on herself," R'hren said dismissively. "Why Shimpath chose her, I don't know. There were plenty of more suitable girls. T'kamen, didn't you have a candidate for that queen egg?"

T'kamen looked away from the old Weyrleader, gritting his teeth. "Credit that to C'mine and Darshanth."

"Shimpath chose Valonna, and we can't change that," C'los said quickly, throwing T'kamen a glance.

"I suppose not," R'hren conceded. "But how are you intending to convince her of T'kamen here? She seems perfectly happy putting up with that lout L'dro."

"Working on it," C'mine said quietly.

"What about you, Kamen?" asked Jenavally. "How do you feel about Valonna?"

"She deserves to be treated better than she is," T'kamen replied.

"But otherwise you don't think much of her?"

"She's the queen's rider. I respect her."

"T'kamen doesn't have to love her, Jena," C'los pointed out. "That's never been a requirement for Weyrleaders."

Leaning back in his chair, V'rai observed T'kamen with narrowed eyes. "So, bronze rider, say you manage this, say your Epherineth catches the queen and you become Weyrleader. What then?"

"Then, things change," said T'kamen. "All deals L'dro has made with the Lords are off. Proper tithes, and decent conditions for all riders, not just bronze riders and favourites. I'll put this place to rights."

"Well, what about us?" the blue rider persisted, gesturing around the room. "Since we'll have given you the Weyrleadership, what will you do to reward us."

"Given him the Weyrleadership?" L'stev exclaimed.

"No one's going to get special treatment," C'los protested simultaneously.

"Wait a moment," R'hren interrupted.

The meeting degenerated into a chorus of conflicting voices and opinions. T'kamen took a deep breath, then raised his voice. "That's enough!"

There was enough force in his tone to silence them all. T'kamen looked around for a moment until all attention was back on him, then continued in a quieter tone. "L'stev is right. No one will give me the Weyrleadership. Your support, our discussions, could help. Will help. But we can only influence a queen flight so far. Epherineth will win or lose her.

"V'rai, you want to know what your rewards will be? Your reward will be a better overall standard of living for all riders. There will be no exchange of one privileged clique for another. But I can promise you all the opportunities you have been denied under L'dro. R'hren – the respect due your position and experience. T'rello – a chance to learn and develop your leadership skills under the best bronze and brown riders to teach you. I'll negotiate a new contract with a dedicated Master Harper so you, Jenavally, have time to be rider and Weyr Singer. But none of these things are rewards for your support. They're just the common courtesies due every single dragonrider in the Weyr, the things L'dro has taken from us all."

"You can't give back what L'dro took from me," said Chuvone.

"Well, what happens to L'dro?" asked V'rai.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," L'stev said darkly.

"L'stev's right," said C'los. "You can't Impress a dragon until it Hatches, and it's only just been laid."

"Well, it's clear who's playing mother queen to it," R'hren muttered, with an irate glance at the green rider.

"If you know of someone with a sharper mind than C'los, R'hren, I'd like to meet him," T'kamen said mildly, before C'los could object to the remark. "This is an Interval. Rider ability counts for more than dragon colour when we don't have to worry about Thread."

"So where do we go from here?" asked T'rello.

"Well, C'mine has the Weyrwoman covered," said C'los, pacified by T'kamen's defence.

The blue rider frowned. "Could you think of a less impersonal expression?" he asked. "Valonna needs a change of Weyrleader as much as any of us, but that doesn't justify treating her like a pawn."

"C'mine is helping the Weyrwoman to assert herself," C'los rephrased. "Probably starting tomorrow, we'll be getting her to talk more to the unranked riders about what they need."

"If Valonna suddenly starts getting involved in the running of the Weyr, won't L'dro realise that something's going on?" asked Jenavally.

"That's where R'hren comes in," said C'los.

The former Weyrleader nodded. "L'dro doesn't perceive me as a threat," he admitted reluctantly. "If he publicly objects to Valonna's activities I'll step in on her behalf. The Weyrwoman has every right to take an active interest in the way the Weyr is run."

"Credit for her new assertiveness will go to C'mine and me," C'los added. "We won't make a secret of that. L'dro doesn't like us, but we're not a threat, either."

"Wait a moment," V'rai objected. "You keep talking about not being a threat – surely T'kamen is the only one L'dro would ever consider a threat? And aren't you counting on support for him among the wingriders to influence the queen's flight?"

"Yes. But not openly, not yet. There are many riders who'd support T'kamen over L'dro, given the choice. The party Mine and I held a few days ago proved that. But there's no point in we few," C'los gestured around the weyr, "threatening L'dro and the Council bronze riders head-on. They'd laugh us off, and find ways to discredit T'kamen before he could build up any significant support. The support has to come first, and that means talking to individual riders. The riders at the party the other day, including those who aren't here now – they're the core of T'kamen's support. For whatever reason, they want L'dro out, and they'll support T'kamen to accomplish it. From them, we expand to the riders who don't like L'dro, or have problems with the way the Council runs things, but who wouldn't usually make a fuss. When they see that they aren't alone, they'll be more inclined to stand up and be counted. Blue and green riders might be at the bottom of the pecking order, but there's more of us than them. We just have to show them that they can make a difference, and that they do have a voice – and T'kamen is the one to speak for them."

T'kamen nodded, pleased to see all the others agreeing too. C'los was perhaps overly fond of the sound of his own voice, but when he was in full flow it was hard to doubt the green rider's passionate belief in the rights of riders who were traditionally sidelined. He couldn't have competed with him in a war of words. T'kamen was just glad that C'los was on his side.

* * *

 

D'feng crossed the dining hall with his thoughts still intent upon the livestock inventory he had left in his office. The figures that weren't adding up on slate had even less chance of doing so in his head, but he believed strongly in the importance of taking breaks to clear his mind when the Weyr's complex logistics were vexing him. His stroll in the fresh air had coincidentally taken him past the herdbeast pens, and he had stood for several minutes tallying the stock before recognising his preoccupation. Chastising himself, he had headed instead for the kitchens. A fresh cup of klah would sharpen his wits.

Standing by the service hatch, waiting for one of the kitchen women to pour for him, D'feng noticed something strange. There was a congregation of riders on the other side of the dining hall. Three hours after the noon meal, there was no reason for so many to be gathered here.

Curious, D'feng moved closer. It was difficult to identify riders from their featureless backs, but glancing over the shoulder knots he could see that they were mostly green and blue riders. He almost dismissed the gathering as an incidental meeting of low-ranked riders, but something, perhaps the tiny grain of instinct and intuition that remained defiant within his otherwise rational and orderly mind, stopped him.

Moving around to the side of the group, D'feng recognised Valonna, and for a moment was rendered speechless. The Weyrwoman was actually speaking to the assembled riders. Just as his counts of herdbeast and wherry were not balancing, so this assertive Valonna did not tally with the malleable, ineffectual personality he and L'dro had worked so hard to cultivate in the queen's rider.

He considered stepping in there and then and putting an end to this dangerous new emergence of backbone in the girl. Undoubtedly L'dro would have done so. But D'feng was not of the same impulsive, hot-headed character as the Weyrleader, and as he began to pick faces out of the crowd his eyes narrowed.

C'mine was there, as quiet and unassuming as ever, but wherever that blue rider was, his more dangerous weyrmate would be, too, and sure enough, D'feng recognised C'los amongst the other riders. That pair had always been trouble. They made friends too easily, and it seemed like Valonna had become their latest conquest. It was a good thing neither of them rode bronze.

D'feng's eyes narrowed still further, and he scanned the crowd for the bronze rider he associated with the difficult pair, but a different rider caught his attention. R'hren? What was the former Weyrleader doing in the midst of this rabble? The old man had made his low opinion of Valonna quite plain over the Turns.

There was something going on here.

D'feng decided to move away before he was noticed. He wanted to discuss this with L'dro, and begin his own investigations, before he blundered in.

As he began to edge cautiously away from the group, one man on the far side of the loose half-circle surrounding the Weyrwoman caught sight of him. D'feng froze, his gaze locked to that of the other man, his measured, analytical mind horrified at the prospect of having to come up with a plan on the spot.

But the man simply held his stare for a moment, and then turned his gaze attentively back to the Weyrwoman.

D'feng moved rapidly away from the assembly, his thoughts awhirl with more than the problem of wherry numbers. _Tell Pierdeth I need to speak to his rider. Immediately._

* * *

 

The audience had dispersed, and Valonna had listened carefully to each of the individual riders who had come up to her with requests or comments afterwards. Her mind was alive with all the details, and she was glad that C'mine had been taking notes.

But even more, she was glad for the blue rider's steady, supportive presence and his quiet confidence in her. She had been momentarily stricken with horror at the expectant group of thirty or forty riders waiting for her. So many people, so many strange faces, and all of them there to listen to her.

"They're your riders," C'mine had encouraged, and the blue rider had introduced her to several of them as he had led her to the front of the group. "This way you won't be looking at a group of total strangers," he'd explained, and Valonna was startled to find that he was right. Even the briefest greeting gave her friendly faces in the crowd.

Her address had been short, outlining in simple terms her desire to contribute more to the Weyr by being available to hear grievances and suggestions from non-Council riders. Valonna had spoken haltingly at first, but following C'mine's advice she had focused on the faces she knew. Shimpath's encouraging voice in her mind had been as supportive and bolstering as C'mine's reassuring physical presence, and by the time Valonna had finished speaking her nervousness had vanished. The feeling of being respected, of having her words heeded, of knowing that she was among those who would listen and accept, was new to her, and yet somehow familiar, like a garment she had worn for Turns but that she had only recently grown to fit.

_They should listen to you_ , Shimpath had said. _Are you not my rider?_

Now, C'mine extended the slate on which he had been taking notes to her. "I knew you'd be fine," he said, his deep voice warm with praise.

Valonna took the hide, scanning the concise script. Then she looked back up at the blue rider, restraining the unaccustomed urge to hug him. "I thought it would be harder," she admitted.

C'los sauntered up, his familiar grin in place. "The hard part is going to be attending to all that business."

Valonna was more comfortable with C'mine than his more demanding, flamboyant weyrmate, but after her success with more than thirty riders she felt less timid. "I didn't realise so many riders needed harness hide," she said, looking at the list of petitions.

"It's a major concern, especially for those of us with dragons who like to test our reflexes periodically," said C'los. "Where are you going to start?"

The question seemed casual, but Valonna noticed the manner of both men become subtly expectant. She looked at the slate, then at the two riders. "Master Mannis would know how much hide is needed, wouldn't he?" she suggested cautiously.

"I'd think so," said C'mine.

Relieved at the blue rider's approval, she felt her spirits lift. Darshanth's rider is a kind man, Shimpath commented, in response to Valonna's unspoken sentiment.

Valonna didn't need to agree with what her dragon already knew. But C'mine's kindness also made her sad. How could the rider of a mere blue be so considerate when the bronze rider who she wished would treat her as kindly was not?

She quickly hid the thought from Shimpath. L'dro would surely be pleased with her efforts to help the Weyr run more smoothly. He had been out-Weyr a great deal recently, and Valonna was sure he would appreciate her contribution, and that of the two riders who were helping her.

* * *

 

"Those two self-important tail-forks?" L'dro asked, with a contemptuous grunt.

"Don't rule them out too quickly," D'feng cautioned him. "They've obviously been putting ideas in the Weyrwoman's head."

"Ideas?" L'dro shook his head. "Valonna wouldn't know an idea if she Impressed it."

"She was talking to a crowd of riders," the other bronze rider said earnestly. "At least three dozen, openly and with confidence."

L'dro shrugged. "Who were they?"

"Blue and green riders, mostly…"

"Hah!" L'dro snorted dismissively.

"…but not all." D'feng paused. "R'hren was there."

L'dro dropped his casual demeanour. He leaned forwards over his desk, regarding D'feng through narrowed eyes. "What was that old fool doing there?"

"That 'old fool' is one of your Flightleaders, and was once Weyrleader," D'feng pointed out.

The hint of disdain that almost broke through D'feng's dispassionate façade irritated L'dro. "I'm not an idiot, rider," he spat. "I asked you why he was there, not who he is."

"His bronze caught Cherganth several times," D'feng replied, his neutrality hastily reasserted.

"Staamath couldn't keep up with a young queen. R'hren can't possibly be planning to retake the Weyrleadership."

"Staamath outflew Pierdeth – and Sejanth – in Cherganth's last flight," D'feng noted. "Strength doesn't count for everything. R'hren could be considering a bid for leadership."

"I can't believe it," L'dro scoffed. "He'd kill Staamath trying to fly Shimpath."

"There is another possibility," said D'feng, as if it had only just occurred to him. "Staamath has flown in a dozen queen flights – he may be extra sensitive to a queen coming into heat. Shimpath could be close to rising again."

"Pierdeth will know. He's her mate, not that ancient dried-up beast of R'hren's." But L'dro wondered if there was any truth to D'feng's theory. Old or not, the ageing bronze had been crafty enough to mate Cherganth more than once.

"Staamath isn't the only bronze you should worry about," D'feng added. "Given that C'los and C'mine are in the thick of this business with the Weyrwoman…"

L'dro scowled. "Did you see T'kamen there?"

"No," D'feng admitted.

"But by association he may as well have been consorting with my Weyrwoman in full view." L'dro slammed his fist down on his desk in a sudden excess of anger. "If they insinuate it into Valonna's head that T'kamen would make a better Weyrleader than me…"

D'feng flinched almost imperceptibly at the palpable threat of violence that hung, unspoken, in the air. "T'kamen has no support on the Council," he assured L'dro. "His objections against his demotion when you became Weyrleader came to nothing. Brown riders climb over each other for a chance to crow at that failure of a bronze rider. Nobody likes a loser. T'kamen's impotent, L'dro."

L'dro's scowl deepened. Stripping his weyrlinghood rival of his rank had been the single most satisfying moment of his time as Weyrleader. Forcing T'kamen to hand over his Wingleader insignia to a brown rider had sweetened the old bitterness of always coming second to him. T'kamen had drawn little attention to himself since, relocating to a remote high-level weyr when his Wingleader quarters had been taken from him along with his status, as silent as his taciturn dragon. But much as L'dro wished he could simply forget about the other bronze rider, he knew he never could. He would never have admitted it, not even to D'feng, but T'kamen had left a lasting mark upon him. Pierdeth's victory over Shimpath had reversed their roles, banishing the old humiliation of him, L'dro, son of L'mis who had been Weyrleader, always being runner-up to a trader boy whose closest friends rode blue and green.

L'dro calmed himself, reaching for Pierdeth's mind for comfort as remembered resentment put a sour taste in his mouth. Weyrleader these four Turns, his position was more secure now than it had been before Shimpath's crucial maiden flight, with twenty bronze riders and twice that number of browns throwing their support behind him. Pierdeth was a powerful bronze, well equipped to catch a rising female fast and early before a wilier male had time to manoeuvre, and the previous clutch bonded him to the queen in a way shared by no other dragon on Pern.

Still, there was no harm in making sure. "Keep an eye on R'hren," he told D'feng finally, breaking out of his thoughts. "I doubt he has serious ambitions to fly Shimpath. Have Sejanth watch his Wing's drills, and make sure that any mistakes – no matter how small – are reported back to me."

"R'hren's had a long career," said D'feng, betraying the hint of a smirk. "It's no surprise that he's slowing down at his age. He deserves a break – perhaps South Cove would suit him?"

"See to it that you contact South Cove on the matter," L'dro told his Second. "As for T'kamen…" L'dro paused, musing. "Did I see a report on the unsatisfactory output of our breeding herdbeasts?"

D'feng's expression brightened momentarily. L'dro recognised the look: the other bronze rider was never happier than when looking over the dozens of accounts and itineraries and tallies that ran the Weyr's day to day affairs. That was the only reason he'd chosen the tedious rider as his right-hand man. L'dro couldn't stand D'feng personally, but the other bronze rider's meticulous attention to detail removed a large burden from L'dro's own desk. "I was looking it over just now, but I don't see the connection."

"Watch Epherineth's consumption of Weyr beasts. See that he's taking no more than his allotted amount."

"Very good, sir." Then a crafty look came over D'feng's face. "Weyrleader, wasn't there a Beastcraft apprentice here around the time that Cherganth's last clutch Hatched?"

L'dro frowned. "A Beastcraft…" Then he remembered. "Of course. Her." He chuckled. "Track her down. The Beastcraft at Peninsula South will have records of her whereabouts. Madellon would like this particular apprentice to assist in our new breeding programme to increase the size of our herds." Then he added, maliciously, "Perhaps it'll give T'kamen something to think about other than Valonna's weyr."

Even D'feng's expression held a certain spiteful edge. "I'll see to it, L'dro."

"As for Valonna…" L'dro paused again.

"Weyrleader?"

L'dro nodded slowly. "Leave her to me."


	5. Chapter Four

"T'kamen, report to the Weyrleader."

T'kamen had barely taken his seat in the Wing ready room when F'digan issued the peremptory command. "Excuse me, Wingleader?"

F'digan glanced up from the hide he was reading, his expression slightly bored. "I said you're to report to the Weyrleader, wingrider. Do you need directions?"

T'kamen stiffened, rising half out of his seat at the insult, until a heavy hand on his shoulder stopped him. L'stev glowered at him from under thick dark brows, but spoke softly. "Easy, Kamen. Nothing to be gained by rising to it. Just go – I'll mind things here."

Fuming silently, T'kamen walked out of the room. _F'digan! A_ brown _rider!_

 _Not all brown riders are bad,_ Epherineth commented from their weyr ledge.

That was true, and T'kamen felt briefly contrite for the sweeping condemnation. F'digan was just the worst of his kind, one of L'dro's favourites. _I swear, Epherineth, if things don't change soon, I'm putting in for a transfer._

_Things will change._

The bronze's certainty steadied T'kamen a little, and he had regained his normal outward impassivity by the time he reached the Weyrleader's office.

L'dro wasn't there, but D'feng was, and the Flightleader wore a blandly expectant expression. "I have a small assignment for you, wingrider."

T'kamen stared at the older bronze rider. "I was told to report to the Weyrleader."

"You will receive your orders from me. You're to go to..."

"You aren't the Weyrleader, D'feng," T'kamen interrupted. "I was told to report to him, not you." _Epherineth, where's Pierdeth?_

 _Not in the Weyr,_ Epherineth replied immediately.

D'feng's thin face had lost its bland expression. "The Weyrleader is otherwise engaged, rider. I act in his stead."

"If L'dro's out-Weyr then why did my Wingleader tell me to report to him?" T'kamen asked coldly. He already knew the answer. This wouldn't be the first time in the last sevenday or so they had tried to catch him out for taking orders from the wrong rider.

"You must have misunderstood the message," D'feng replied.

T'kamen clenched his teeth to hold back the angry retort, feeling his blood heat with withheld fury. "Then next time relay it straight through my dragon rather than my Wingleader."

D'feng dropped his gaze to the hides on L'dro's desk, then shoved a slip across to T'kamen. "Go to Blue Shale Hold and pick up a special order there. Deliver it to its destination intact, or you'll be paying for breakages out of your own time and marks."

"You pulled me out of a Wing meeting for a job any weyrling could do?" T'kamen asked incredulously.

"We have no weyrlings," D'feng reminded him piously.

"Any off-duty rider, then."

D'feng smiled thinly. "This errand is very important. It requires the prestige of a bronze dragon."

Fighting to maintain his composure in the light of D'feng's insulting tone, T'kamen ground out, "My Wing is drilling today. Why don't you send T'rello or Fr'ton?"

"I'm sending you, rider," D'feng said coldly. "You have your orders."

 _Not now,_ Epherineth cautioned, anticipating the refusal on T'kamen's tongue. _We can go and be back quickly._

_How can you…?_

_He's provoking you. Don't let him._

T'kamen gritted his teeth at his dragon's attitude, then snatched up the slip of hide and strode from the office, rigid with fury.

Epherineth was already angling down from their ledge, his flying straps dangling from one forepaw. He landed a length away from his rider, turning his great head to regard T'kamen with a calming gaze, ignoring his accusatory glare. _Things will change._

 _They should never have got this bad in the first place._ T'kamen took the harness his dragon had pulled off the rack and slipped it onto the sleek bronze neck, tightening and adjusting the fit before vaulting to his place.

Only then did he glance at the piece of hide D'feng had given him. T'kamen's grip tightened on Epherineth's neck until the bronze shook himself slightly in protest. _Faranth's teeth, L'dro and D'feng are Threadbait!_

 _There's no Thread,_ Epherineth reminded him.

T'kamen bit back an irate rejoinder to his dragon's apparent nonchalance, and read aloud, "'Report to Eastan, Steward of Blue Shale Hold, and journeyman Sarenya of the Beastcraft to take delivery of the cargo'." Then, softly, he added, "Journeyman."

_Who is she?_

T'kamen stuffed the hide into the inner pocket of his flying jacket. _She's who Shimpath should have chosen._

* * *

She rode like a natural. T'kamen had noticed that the day he and Epherineth had brought her back to the Weyr, and even now, astride the great bronze's neck in no more than a flimsy white candidate robe, Sarenya seemed comfortable and confident and entirely at home.

He kept his arm around her waist anyway.

Epherineth landed cautiously, half folding his wings to keep down the dust, and his hind paws sank deep into the soft sand of the Hatching ground. The bronze settled to his forearms and dropped his shoulder, unasked.

Sarenya looked back at T'kamen. "This is my stop."

The remark made him smile. The expression still felt strange. "Watch that sand. It's hot."

"I think it's meant to be." Sarenya's strong fingers squeezed his wrist lightly, then let go. She slipped down Epherineth's shoulder easily, touching the bronze's forepaw in thanks, then glanced up at T'kamen with a wince, shifting her feet. "Well, you did warn me."

T'kamen looked down at the girl, wishing he could put what he felt into words. "Good luck," he said finally, lamely.

"Thank you, Kamen."

Sarenya turned and walked across the sands towards the other girls, bearing the heat without complaint. Epherineth rumbled softly. _We should go._

The bronze let him dismount at the top of the stands before finding himself a vantage point with the other dragons on the high ledge circling the Hatching ground, and adding his soft voice to the hum. T'kamen kept his eyes fixed on Sarenya as he walked down through the rows of people, lost in thought, until he felt a hand tug at his jacket.

"Hey, you nearly walked right by us. Come sit."

T'kamen focused distractedly on C'los. "Of course. Sorry."

"What's the matter with you?" the green rider asked. "It's a Hatching, not a funeral."

"Leave him alone," C'mine interjected, then asked T'kamen, "Was Saren all right?"

"Yes." T'kamen thought about the girl's poise. He didn't remember being as calm when he had stood to Impress. "Confident."

"They've shortened the odds on her again," C'los said. "I'm glad I put my mark in early."

"It's no surprise, with Fianine's approval," said C'mine

"I mean, just _look_ at some of these girls," C'los went on. "That skinny one H'ned brought in – she'd break just to look at her. And that pretty thing of T'gat's couldn't Impress a fire-lizard, let alone a queen dragon."

T'kamen wasn't really listening, still watching Sarenya, the apprentice Beastcrafter he and his friends had found almost five sevendays ago. At nineteen Turns she had the maturity to handle the responsibility that would be thrust upon her; the strength of will to cope with a headstrong queen dragonet, and a background in animal care that would stand her well in caring for a young dragon. Sarenya couldn't compete with the true beauties – striking rather than pretty, her blue eyes dominated regular features, and her dark hair was confined in its usual practical braid – but her easy smile, intelligent manner, and confident poise was worth so much more to T'kamen.

C'los' commentary intruded on his thoughts again. "L'dro found someone? Blonde, young, jumping at her own shadow – just his usual type, then."

"Cherganth's looking calm, all things considered," C'mine remarked, nodding towards the adult queen.

"She's been through all this before," his weyrmate shrugged.

"Never a queen egg, though. And never with Fianine so sick." The blue rider glanced towards where the Weyrwoman was standing in the bottom tier near her dragon, proudly refusing R'hren's offers of assistance, but clutching the barrier for support.

"Oh, here we go," C'los said eagerly as the humming stopped and the first egg cracked to spill its occupant onto the hot sands.

 _Don't let it be a green,_ T'kamen thought, irrationally. It wasn't: the gangly little creature was darker, a brown or a bronze, although he couldn't tell which. As it staggered into its chosen partner, and the crowd roared with one voice, T'kamen wondered why he was worried about greens.

 _You don't want a green to choose her before the queen has a chance,_ Epherineth commented, amused.

_Maybe that's it._

More eggs were cracking: two blues and a green had stumbled into the world. T'kamen held his breath, but the green chose a girl a long way down the line from Sarenya.

"Hey, that's Lenjando who just got a blue, O'pendro's youngest," C'los exclaimed. "Good lad, Lenjy!"

"Nice bronze," C'mine observed of a closer dragonet. "Looks like yours, Kamen."

Despite himself, T'kamen tore his eyes away from Sarenya and the rocking queen egg to look at the squalling bronze hatchling.

 _I was never that small,_ Epherineth commented.

A boy T'kamen didn't recognise was standing in front of the young bronze, his expression filled with a mixture of astonishment and joy and adoration. "Zintyrath," he breathed, his eyes flooding with tears. "Zintyrath...oh...you're so beautiful...and...mine?"

 _You were,_ T'kamen said, looking away from the Impression, feeling a lump in his throat at the memory of the moment when a softly crying bronze dragonet had struggled to meet him, remembering how he had instantly known that the dragon had a name, and that name was Epherineth.

"V'stan's going to be weeping into his ale tonight, his girl got a green," C'los crowed.

"Queen's showing," C'mine observed, and there was excitement in the normally calm blue rider's voice.

The glowing shell of the golden egg had fractured, and its occupant was struggling out. T'kamen felt his dragon's instant love and respect go out to the new queen, even as she wailed with her need to find a partner. The girls quickly moved closer to circle the hatchling, obscuring her from view. T'kamen couldn't see Sarenya any more. _What's happening?_ he asked Epherineth.

_She chooses._

The queen's voice took on a note of incredible joy as she made her choice, and a great sigh of regret washed through the rejected girls.

They fell back, away from the queen and her partner, to reveal the young blonde girl L'dro had brought in, her face alight with happiness, her arms wrapped protectively around the golden dragonet's shoulders.

 _Her name is Shimpath,_ said Epherineth.

* * *

Sarenya had just finished wrapping the last fire-lizard egg in a cushioning layers of furs when all but one of the four adult lizards in the room chattered excitedly and vanished _between_. Only the little bronze kept his vigil on the edge of the basket of wrapped eggs, rustling his wings slightly. Sarenya smiled indulgently at him. Tarnish had always taken himself rather seriously.

The apprentice making a painstaking inventory of the herb locker looked up from his work but didn't venture to speak. On the other side of the room, Kaddyston rose from inspecting one of the herd canines, close to birthing her litter. "That sounds like your ride, Saren."

Sarenya ran a gentle hand over the protected clutch, then glanced down at the three packs that would be accompanying her on her new assignment. Not much to show for more than five Turns of service. But then how could she possibly take anything but the memory of the hundreds of animals she had treated in her tenure here, the runners and herdbeasts she had helped birth, the sick creatures she had nursed back to health, and the fire-lizards – especially the fire-lizards.

Two of those, though, would accompany her – the bronze Tarnish, and Sleek, his more excitable blue brother. Sleek had resisted all attempts at schooling, prone to long periods of truancy, but he always came back eventually. By comparison, Tarnish had responded well to his training, and he was a helpful partner and valued companion. She'd Impressed them both as part of her training in the speciality of Blue Shale Beastcrafters. Fire-lizard eggs were a major export of the coastal Hold, especially to the North where wild clutches were seldom found. Most of the Southern coastline came under the jurisdiction of one Hold or another, but Blue Shale's careful monitoring of its beaches and indigenous fire-lizard populations gave it the most reliable self-replenishing source of eggs for trade to the North and inland.

Sarenya had spent her fair share of time on the beaches during her posting here, logging green and gold clutches and monitoring the hardness of the eggs, then selecting some from each viable clutch to bring back for trade. Some Holds simply plundered every egg in every nest they found, leaving the local population depleted. Blue Shale's more cautious husbandry kept the wild fairs healthy. Any eggs thought to hold queens were never traded, and most were left to mature in the wild. The few queen fire-lizards looking to humans instinctively returned to their ancestral clutching grounds to lay, but Blue Shale had no desire to destroy its market by giving a breeding female to someone who might train it to lay elsewhere. A few chosen Blue Shale Holders with queens had been trying to train them to do just that, but with little success. Instinct, it seemed, was a powerful motivator when it came to fire-lizard breeding habits.

Sarenya would have liked to try training a queen to lay on demand, but fond as she was of the creatures, more hands were needed to care for the working beasts of the Hold. Fire-lizards were pretty pets, and could be trained as useful messengers, but their practical importance paled in comparison to the meat and milk herds, the wool-producing ovines, and the working runners and canines.

The notification of her new posting had come as a complete surprise. Sarenya had expected to stay at Blue Shale for another two Turns: the senior of two journeymen, she was second in experience only to Master Kaddyston himself. Golirien was a competent crafter, but they would be scrambling to cover Sarenya's duties until such time as the Hall assigned another journeyman to Blue Shale. None of the seven apprentices were ready for promotion.

Handing over this clutch of fourteen lizard eggs was the last duty Sarenya would perform as a Blue Shale journeyman. It was only a few days from hatching, and since a rider was coming to convey her anyway, a short side-trip to Kellad Hold to deliver the clutch would be an economical use of his time.

Sarenya picked up the first of her packs, slinging it over her shoulder. "Tarnish, come," she called to her lizard as she hefted the second pack. The bronze swooped over obediently to alight on her shoulder, digging his talons into the well-worn leather of Sarenya's jacket.

"Fajon, leave that and help bring out this clutch," Kaddyston told the diligent apprentice. He himself leaned down to pick up the last of Sarenya's bags as Fajon carefully lifted the basket of fire-lizard eggs.

Sarenya glanced around the room once more, but the office bore few memories. Most of her time had been spent in the stables and the fields. "Better not keep the rider waiting."

They filed out of the Beastcraft office, attached to the stable block, awkward with their burdens. The three errant fire-lizards returned in a flurry of wings. Kaddyston's brown and Fajon's green made for their respective masters, and Sleek dived for Sarenya's shoulder. Tarnish barked at him, a sharp reprimand for the reckless flying. The little blue chirped in chagrin and settled on one of the backpacks instead.

Fajon, in the lead with the basket of fire-lizard eggs, turned the corner to the main courtyard first. "Shells, they sent a bronze!"

Sarenya felt her stomach turn an awkward cartwheel as she rounded the corner and saw the massive bulk of the bronze dragon filling the yard, and she was distractedly glad that she wasn't carrying the eggs. She was sure she would have dropped them, for the dragon was Epherineth. The flowing muscles, lean and smooth under the distinctive green-gold sheen of his glossy hide, the quiet dignity of his bearing, the proud sweep of his wings – all were unmistakable features of that most familiar bronze. She let her burdens slide to the ground from suddenly weak hands, ignoring Sleek's protests at being dislodged, as she turned to regard Epherineth's rider.

T'kamen was standing with Eastan, the little man who served as steward to the Hold. Sarenya's eyes ran over the bronze rider rapidly, taking in all the details even more deeply engraved on her memory than those of the great bronze. T'kamen had barely changed: his frame was as spare and his stance as alert and resolute as she remembered. But there was a greater hostility in his demeanour, more tension in the new lines that marked his lean face, and if the fierce intensity of his gaze was the same, it spoke of contained frustration, an aggression boiling up from deep inside. The bronze rider had the look of an angry bull, goaded almost to the point of a charge. The shoulders of his riding jacket bore epaulettes with the single gold stripe of a mere wingrider. Sarenya had known about T'kamen's demotion for Turns, but somehow, seeing him without the three bars of a Wingleader was shocking.

"Get back and check on that bitch, Fajon, she's very close now," Kaddyston told the apprentice, who was still staring admiringly at the huge dragon, the basket of eggs left forgotten with Sarenya's packs. Then, in a more covert tone, he asked Sarenya, "Old friend?"

Sarenya nodded. Her Master knew about her brief stay at Madellon Weyr seven Turns previously, and his sense for her discomfort was as delicate and accurate as the skill with animals that made him such a fine Beastcrafter. But keeping a dragonrider – any dragonrider – waiting was an unforgivable breach of etiquette. Sarenya steeled herself as she approached T'kamen. She took a deep breath, let it out, then spoke in what she hoped was a level tone. "Bronze rider."

T'kamen froze almost imperceptibly for a fraction of a second, then slowly turned to her. His face wiped clean, an expressionless mask of harsh lines, even his eyes suddenly empty, and when he spoke his voice was dead. "Journeyman."

The silence that followed stretched out uncomfortably. Sarenya could not speak, nor move, nor take her eyes from T'kamen's emotionless face. On her shoulder, Tarnish remained still; even Sleek ceased his normal antics and perched soberly on one of the packs.

Finally Eastan cleared his throat meaningfully. Sarenya looked at the little steward in surprise. She had forgotten he was even there.

"You have the eggs for Kellad Hold, journeyman?" asked Eastan.

"Yes." Glad for the distraction, Sarenya looked down at the wrapped clutch, still radiating a faint heat from the warm hearth. "Fourteen, as arranged."

"Would you like to count them, bronze rider?"

"That won't be necessary, Steward."

T'kamen's flat reply surprised Sarenya, but she was too troubled to try to decipher his meaning as he signed for the clutch. Suddenly she just wanted to get _between_ to Madellon and get away from the expressionless stranger T'kamen had become. "My packs are ready; I'll just take leave of my Master…"

"What?" T'kamen demanded, a sudden hardness to his voice. "I was sent here to pick up a fire-lizard clutch."

His reaction went beyond mere irritation with the menial task he had been assigned. "I've been posted to Madellon Weyr, bronze rider," she said, not understanding his demand.

T'kamen's eyes flared suddenly with renewed anger. "I was only told about the clutch."

Kaddyston stepped up at that moment. "I think there's been a miscommunication, bronze rider," he said. "My journeyman has indeed been posted to Madellon; the message we received from your Weyrleader indicated that the rider detailed to deliver the clutch to Kellad would also convey Sarenya to the Weyr." The Master paused, then added peaceably, "I'm sure if you speak to your Weyrleader this could be resolved, or another rider could be sent…"

"No." T'kamen's negative was too abrupt to be polite. "Take your leave, journeyman." With that, the bronze rider picked up two of Sarenya's packs and turned to secure them to his dragon's riding harness.

Kaddyston drew her aside. "I wouldn't normally interfere, Saren. But this rider obviously knows you, and wasn't told he would be expected to convey you. And why has the Weyrleader sent a bronze? What's going on here?"

Sarenya glanced at T'kamen's back. The bronze rider's anger and embarrassment at being made to look a fool was tangible. "It's a long story," she said, a little awkwardly. "But he's not been sent to honour _me_."

"Watch your back at the Weyr, Saren," Kaddyston cautioned her. "You're a fine Beaster, but something tells me that things are not right there." He pressed a rolled and sealed hide into her hand. "Your reference for Master Arrense. I hope he appreciates your skills."

Sarenya clasped Kaddyston's strong, callused hand firmly. "Thank you, Master."

There were no other farewells to make. The other Beasters were out in the fields or on the beaches; Sarenya had said her goodbyes to them last night. Resolutely, she turned to the bronze dragon, buttoning her jacket closed against the cold of _between_. Tarnish took off from her shoulder and joined Sleek, hovering slightly above Epherineth.

T'kamen had already settled on his dragon's neck. He looked down at her, his eyes invisible behind the dark-tinted goggles. "You remember how to mount?"

Before Sarenya had a chance to answer, Epherineth had cocked his forearm and angled his shoulder. Sarenya stepped on the bronze's arm and then reached up to take the hand T'kamen offered. Once she was in place behind him on Epherineth's neck, the bronze rider secured her with the fighting strap. Tarnish and Sleek landed on her shoulders.

Despite the tension, Sarenya admired the enormous strength of the dragon beneath her, feeling the great beast's muscles bunch as he prepared to take off. She noticed Eastan and Kaddyston moving well back, to give the bronze dragon space, and all the curious faces watching at the windows of the Hold.

Then Epherineth sprang, his wings catching the air and lifting them easily. Within three strokes they were high above the Hold. Sarenya turned her face away as the wind rushing past made her eyes stream, but out of T'kamen's sight, she was smiling at the exhilarating power of Epherineth's flight.

She saw T'kamen's signal, and then they were _between_. The darkness held no fear for Sarenya, save the memory of the last time she had ridden dragonback. She could not feel herself shiver in the icy cold, but she knew she had, and that the shiver, like the memory, would stay with her long after she emerged into the light.

* * *

 _Between_ had done little to cool T'kamen's fury by the time Epherineth emerged into brilliant sunlight far above Kellad Hold's fire-heights. If L'dro and D'feng had set out to provoke him, they had succeeded. Sending him on an errand – an errand! – delivering fire-lizard eggs was insult enough. Neglecting to mention that he was also expected to convey a journeyman back to the Weyr had humiliated him in front of Hold Steward and Craft Master. But when that journeyman was Sarenya of the Beastcraft… T'kamen seethed with impotent rage.

Epherineth had withheld comment, demonstrating an excess of reticence even by his taciturn standards. As he adjusted his speed to make a controlled descent to the courtyard of the Hold, he said simply, _Be calm_.

The bronze's admonition was quiet but forceful, and dispersed the intensity of T'kamen's anger. T'kamen felt a brief surge of irritation at his dragon's effortless management of his emotions, but he had been grateful for Epherineth's moderating influence on his temper more than once in the past. He forced himself to breathe deeply, accept Epherineth's caution, ignore his passenger, and focus instead upon the Hold.

The great courtyard was as familiar to T'kamen from the ground as from the air. He had spent the first seventeen Turns of his life travelling with one of the oldest established Southern trader trains, so Kellad Hold was the closest thing T'kamen had ever had to a home before the Weyr. Each autumn the wagons of his family, and the other families that made up the train, would return here to weather the coldest months of the Turn. Each winter Taskamen had renewed his friendships and rivalries with the boys of the Hold and of the Harperhall that defined one side of the courtyard. Here, in the bitter cold of winter fourteen Turns ago, Taskamen of the traders, Cairmine of Kellad, and Carellos of the Harperhall had been Searched by a blue dragon of Madellon Weyr.

T'kamen seldom had reason to visit Kellad, but the place was little different to how he remembered. Harper crafters in blue numbered almost the same as holders, with the brown and green colours of Kellad woven into their shoulder knots. Smoke rose from the furnaces in the Hold smithies, and the rasp of file and saw sounded steadily from the workshops of Kellad's carpenters. The fragrance of fresh sawdust attested to the Hold's most prosperous industry: great swathes of hard- and softwoods had been planted immediately after the end of the last Pass, so as to maximise timber production while no Thread fell to destroy the trees. Almost a hundred Turns on, the foresight of those long-dead foresters was paying rich dividends for the holders of Kellad.

As Epherineth settled to the flagstones, T'kamen glanced over at the main doors of the Hold to see who had been sent to take delivery of the fire-lizard eggs. He narrowed his eyes as he recognised the brawny man standing among a cluster of women on the steps of the Hold. What was so significant about a clutch of fire-lizard eggs to merit Lord Meturvian's personal attention?

"Dragonrider!" the big man bellowed up at him.

T'kamen dismounted, pulling down his flying goggles and wondering bitterly what oversight he'd made this time. "Lord Holder Meturvian."

Kellad's Lord halted his approach, looking more closely at him, then at Epherineth. "My apologies. I took you for L'dro."

T'kamen inclined his head curtly in acknowledgement of the apology. "T'kamen, Epherineth's rider. I have fire-lizard eggs for you."

Behind Meturvian, the young women – the Lord's daughters, by their resemblance to him – pressed forwards eagerly. "L'dro said fourteen," he said suspiciously.

Behind him, T'kamen heard Sarenya slither down Epherineth's shoulder. "Fourteen Blue Shale fire-lizard eggs, my Lord," she said in a clear voice. "They've been well protected against _between_ , but they need heat – a warm hearth would be ideal."

T'kamen untied the basket of fire-lizard eggs from Epherineth's harness and handed it wordlessly to Sarenya. The journeyman unwrapped the first egg, showing Kellad's Lord the pale, mottled shell and giving him a chance to count the clutch.

Satisfied, Meturvian nodded. "Javiann will show you to the hearth in my office, journeyman."

One of his daughters led Sarenya into the Hold, but Meturvian folded his arms, staring at T'kamen. "Tell your Weyrleader that lizard eggs are a pretty gift, but no compensation for the shame he has brought on my family." The burly Lord turned a hard glare on one of his remaining daughters.

T'kamen noticed the telltale swell of the girl's belly, and the way she cast her eyes down at his scrutiny. So, L'dro had been careless enough to get the daughter of a powerful Lord pregnant. T'kamen would have laughed, but the significance of the fire-lizard clutch was now all too plain. The transaction he had assumed to be between Blue Shale and Kellad involved the Weyrleader directly. L'dro must have waived a significant portion of the Weyr's tithe from Blue Shale in exchange for these eggs to pacify Meturvian. No wonder things were so tight at the Weyr, with L'dro spending half its resources to gloss over his own indiscretions. And by Meturvian's avaricious tone, he wouldn't be satisfied with one clutch of eggs as compensation.

"I'll see that he gets the message," T'kamen said coldly, as disgusted by the Holder's greed as by L'dro's corruption. He was doubly keen to get back to the Weyr now, to discuss these new revelations with C'los, and to leave this place. He longed for the comfortable quiet of his own weyr.

Then, too, as Sarenya returned, T'kamen felt his indignation at L'dro's dishonesty fade into insignificance. He yanked his darkened goggles up to cover his eyes and vaulted to Epherineth's neck: ostensibly because he had no desire to tarry here any longer than necessary, in truth because even looking at the journeyman Beastcrafter stirred up memories and regrets best left forgotten. T'kamen waited while Sarenya bade Meturvian a polite farewell, no longer caring that he was playing the menial role D'feng had set for him to the hilt.

When Sarenya turned to mount, T'kamen gripped her forearm with such strength that she winced as she settled into place behind him, and massaged her wrist gingerly with the other hand. The journeyman's two fire-lizards chattered indignantly, and under her breath, Sarenya muttered, "Kamen!"

The familiar use of his name was as startling to Sarenya as it was to T'kamen, if the surprise in her eyes was accurate. T'kamen froze, searching her astonished gaze for calculation, guiltily glad that his own eyes were hidden. Then, before he could say anything inadvisable, he turned back, staring forwards at the back of Epherineth's head. _Get us out of here_.

The bronze gathered his weight, easing back onto his haunches before leaping aloft with all the gigantic power of his massively muscular hind legs. T'kamen leaned into the steep climb, blocking everything out of his mind save for a crystal clear visualisation of Madellon, far more detailed than Epherineth required.

But as he signalled the imminent jump, T'kamen felt Sarenya tuck her hands into his belt, and as the perfect image of Madellon fled his mind, he was glad of the knowledge that Epherineth's unerring instinct would always guide them safely home.


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

"…And the dragons stay clear of this end of the Bowl, see, so they doesn't spook the milkers, though the most of 'em's so daft they wouldn't blink twice if a dragon come down right afore 'em…"

Sarenya stifled a sigh as Kerrickan burbled on. Master Arrense had charged the lad with the responsibility of showing her around the beast pens, but Sarenya guessed that Madellon's Master Beastcrafter had just wanted a reprieve from his garrulous apprentice.

She leaned on the fence of the enclosure, making a rough estimate of numbers. The dairy herd, at least, seemed sufficient to meet the Weyr's needs. Of considerably more concern was the woeful state of the beast and wherry pens set aside for dragon use.

By Sarenya's estimate, Madellon's complement of two hundred and twenty-four dragons consumed slightly less than seven hundred beasts per sevenday. Even with the older milk cows that had been pulled off the dairy herd, the pens were a full third under-strength. The amount of out-Weyr hunting that must be necessary was incredible.

Things had certainly changed since the last time she had been here.

Epherineth had come in too low and too fast for her to get a good look at the Weyr from above. T'kamen had given her only the most cursory directions to the Master Beastcrafter's office and then left her there in the Bowl, directing Epherineth up to a ledge at a level Sarenya could not hope to reach without a dragon.

But reporting to her new Master was more important than chasing after a foul-tempered bronze rider. But reporting to her new Master was more important than chasing after a foul-tempered bronze rider. The fact that that Master also happened to be Sarenya's uncle – her father's brother – was less important than her desire to make a good impression. Sarenya had found her way to Arrense's office and presented herself. He had taken her documents and given her Kerrickan as a guide, and instructions to report back once she was settled.

Now, Sarenya wondered if Arrense hadn't bargained the best end of the deal. Kerrickan had led her on a lovingly detailed tour of the Weyr's stock pens, and his earnest description of the ways of dragons was almost patronising. She resolved to remain patient. The boy wasn't to know that she had been here before – and Sarenya intended to keep it that way.

Tarnish came to her rescue. The bronze arrowed in low over the dairy enclosure, startling one of the placid milk cows. Sarenya offered him her arm as a perch, and Tarnish landed, broadcasting a slightly shaky image of the blue dragon she had sent him to find.

Sarenya stroked her lizard's neck gratefully, then addressed Kerrickan, interrupting his commentary. "My thanks for your help, apprentice, but Tarnish has just informed me that my presence is required elsewhere."

The lad stared at her blankly. "But, Master said I were to show you everything."

"You have, Kerrickan, and I thank you. But I'd like to do some investigating for myself." When the boy still didn't move, Sarenya added gently, "You're dismissed, apprentice."

As she headed briskly across the Bowl away from Kerrickan, Saren made a mental note to praise the apprentice to Master Arrense. Rambling or not, he had not shirked his duty, and at least his methodical tour had given her an accurate impression of the Weyr's predicament. Its herds were clearly inadequate. Sarenya wondered how Madellon's dragonriders felt about the shortage.

Tarnish chirped in her ear, and Sarenya touched his forepaw, returning her attention to her new objective. The sight of the familiar blue dragon resting in full sun on his ledge made Sarenya lengthen her stride. As she climbed the short flight of steps cut into the rock the blue raised his head, gazing at her with sparkling eyes and a welcoming rumble. "Good day to you, too, Darshanth," Sarenya greeted the handsome dragon courteously.

Darshanth lowered his head to her. Thank you, Sarenya of the Beastcraft.

Pleased that he had spoken to her, Sarenya rubbed the blue's downy near eye ridge, and asked, "Is Mine home?"

He's coming.

"Saren? Is that you?"

The soft baritone, so close a tonal match to Darshanth's deep voice, made Sarenya smile, and she moved around the dragon's bulk to greet his rider. "Who else were you expecting, C'mine?"

The blue rider stepped around his dragon's tail, moving into the light to meet her. "I wasn't expecting anyone, but I'll take you gladly. It's good to see you." He held out his arms to her.

Sarenya sent Tarnish aloft and stepped into C'mine's embrace unencumbered, hugging him warmly. "Good to see you too, Mine."

The blue rider held her at arm's length for a moment, regarding her with an expression of sincere pleasure. Sarenya felt his smile lift her spirits. C'mine wasn't what most people would have called handsome, but there was a nobility and dignity to his features, an incredible gentleness in his eyes, and his incorruptibly beautiful soul radiated from him. It had been less than a month since he and C'los had last stopped by Blue Shale, but Sarenya was still glad to see him.

"You're looking well," C'mine complimented her. "What brings you here?"

"I've been transferred," Sarenya replied. "I arrived about an hour ago."

"You're here for good?"

"My contract's for a Turn initially. Something about improving the Weyr's breeding programme." Sarenya shrugged. "Not really my field of expertise, but this is where the Hall's put me, and I wasn't about to turn down this place."

C'mine looked briefly concerned. "You're all right with being here?"

Sarenya was about to reply, "Why shouldn't I be?" when she remembered who C'mine was, and stepped down her defences. She smiled a little sadly. "T'kamen was sent to pick me up."

The blue rider's eyes widened, and then he shook his head. "No wonder he just called C'los up to his weyr."

Unwilling to dwell on the issue, even with this most understanding of friends, Sarenya asked, "He and Indioth are all right?"

"Of course," said C'mine. "They'll be glad to see you." His tone became teasing. "You'll have to find someone else to keep score, though. I'm not getting involved."

Sarenya smiled wryly. "I'm out of practice. Los is bound to get in a few on me before I get my touch back."

C'mine squeezed her hands lightly. "Saren, I actually have a guest at the moment."

"I didn't realise, Mine, I'm sorry," Sarenya apologised hastily. She hadn't thought that the blue rider might be otherwise occupied. "I'll leave you to it."

"No, on the contrary: you should probably come in and make your introductions anyway. You'll need to do so at some point."

Mystified, Sarenya asked, "You're not being unfaithful to C'los?"

C'mine laughed. "Nothing like that. Come on in."

Sarenya stepped over Darshanth's tail, which lay across the entrance to the weyr, as if the blue wanted his presence acknowledged. She glanced up at the dragon with a smile as C'mine led her inside.

The weyr was brightly lit with glows, and comfortably appointed, but neither its warm lighting nor the evidence of its occupants' impeccable taste in furnishings surprised Sarenya as much as the young woman sitting at the table. Her rank cords were half-hidden on her shoulder, and she was older by seven Turns than she had been the last time Sarenya had seen her, but the girl was undoubtedly the Weyrwoman of Madellon.

Or Valonna of Jessaf Hold, as Sarenya remembered her: the timid, awestruck little girl who had been brought to the Weyr at the last possible moment, spending only a single night in the Weyr before the Hatching. Valonna, rider of golden Shimpath: the dragonet Sarenya could have loved, had the infant queen not turned from her to choose the one girl who had hung back. Valonna, whose worthiness of Impressing a queen had been proved on that day, at the expense of Sarenya's own.

Sarenya felt C'mine's hand drop lightly onto her shoulder. "Saren, this is Weyrwoman Valonna. Weyrwoman, this is journeyman Sarenya of the Beastcraft, just posted to Madellon."

Journeyman? Sarenya thought furiously, irrationally angry with C'mine for his innocuous introduction, as if she and Valonna had never met. I'm a failed candidate first and a journeyman second, especially to her.

But the Weyrwoman showed no sign of recognition. Smoothing down her skirts, Valonna stood, extended her hand to Sarenya and spoke in a clear voice. "Welcome to Madellon, journeyman."

Sarenya stared at Valonna's hand. The girl's fingers were smooth and pale – strengthened by the exercise of caring for a dragon, no doubt, but a stark contrast to her own sun-browned and work-callused hands, just as the sudden upsurge of doubt in herself contrasted with the young Weyrwoman's quiet confidence.

She covered Valonna's hand before her hesitation became embarrassing, and managed a smile. "Thank you, Weyrwoman. It's an honour to be posted to the Weyr. I look forward to the new challenges."

Valonna's expression wavered for a fraction of an instant. Sarenya caught the change, fiercely curious to know what the Weyrwoman's polite façade was hiding, but C'mine spoke first.

"Saren's an old friend of ours," he told the Weyrwoman. "We've kept in touch over the Turns."

Sarenya watched Valonna intently, but the Weyrwoman's attention was all on C'mine as the blue rider spoke, his soft words filling what would otherwise have been an uncomfortable silence. She frowned slightly: there was suddenly a look of totally unguarded dependence on Valonna's face, quite at odds with her previous assurance. Either the girl was as uncertain as Sarenya had become, or she was a consummate actress. Surely not the latter: the Valonna that Sarenya remembered had been genuinely shy and unsure, and C'mine was not easy to fool.

But then, Valonna had surprised everyone by Impressing Shimpath, and her influence on her queen was mutely evident in the identity of the current Weyrleader. No: Sarenya had no intention of underestimating the Weyrwoman a second time. Any woman capable of Impressing a queen dragon must have something special about her, and whatever C'mine's reasons for this association with Valonna, Sarenya was determined to keep her guard up at all times.

C'los sat quietly, watching T'kamen pace. The angry glint in the bronze rider's eyes, and the aggravation that showed in every inch of his lean frame, had convinced C'los to tone down his normal brashness. Provoking T'kamen was one of his favourite pastimes, but not when the bronze rider was already agitated.

He sorted through the implications of what T'kamen had told him. The new evidence of L'dro's indiscretion was unsurprising – potentially useful, but otherwise predictable. C'los was more interested in the significance of Sarenya's posting. T'kamen was clearly too upset to think the issue through, but C'los was already suspicious.

It wasn't the first time L'dro had sent T'kamen on silly errands with the express purpose of riling him. Adding embarrassment into the bargain by leaving him ignorant of the journeyman he was also supposed to convey was a slightly more subtle twist, but still nothing new.

No: the real clue was Sarenya herself. New members of any Craft had been rare at the Weyr during L'dro's tenure: certainly, there had been more dismissals than appointments. The chances of Sarenya's posting being a coincidence were slim. L'dro was not ignorant of her connection with T'kamen. Around the time of Cherganth's final Hatching almost every bronze rider had had acknowledged links with at least one female candidate. The advantage of having favour with a queen rider in mating flights had been amply illustrated when Pierdeth had flown Shimpath. But the understanding between T'kamen and Sarenya had been more sincere than most, and that fact had not gone unnoticed by the other bronze riders of the Weyr. Sarenya had been widely regarded as one of the most likely candidates for the queen egg, and by association that had made T'kamen a serious contender for the Weyrleadership. Valonna's Impression, and Sarenya's subsequent disappearance from the Weyr, had marked the end of any overtly political interest in the connection, but C'los was sure that L'dro had not forgotten.

So the Weyrleader had specifically requested that Sarenya return to Madellon. Why? Simply to add insult to T'kamen's injury? To make his humiliation before Hold and Hall worse? There were many other ways to achieve that, most less costly and troublesome than pulling a journeyman out of an established post.

C'los frowned to himself. L'dro was hardly famed for his mental flexibility – a heavy-handed approach would be his style. But D'feng must have had a hand in this, too: C'los sensed a more calculated influence than L'dro behind this plot to upset T'kamen. Sejanth's rider was even more rigid than the Weyrleader, but D'feng had the beginnings of a sense of subtlety. L'dro would not have restricted the audience for T'kamen's embarrassment to a few unimportant Hold and Craft folk. D'feng, then, had engineered the details. But by openly sending T'kamen to Blue Shale for the fire-lizard eggs and Sarenya, albeit neglecting to mention the latter duty, D'feng had drawn attention to the journeyman. Why had he and L'dro gone to such pains to put Sarenya in T'kamen's way?

Under any other circumstances, C'los would have been pleased to have Sarenya so close. He relished their often vicious verbal sparring, valuing her as an opponent, and he knew that C'mine was extremely fond of her. But C'los could sense that Sarenya was a pawn in a larger plot contrived by D'feng and L'dro to trip up T'kamen, and the unusual complexity of intrigue from two riders whose methods were typically far blunter could mean only one thing.

"They've started thinking about Shimpath's next flight," he said aloud.

T'kamen stopped pacing, looking at C'los with narrowed eyes, but the two riders had been acquainted with each other's peculiarities for many Turns, and the bronze rider did not question the apparently random statement. Instead, he simply said, "Go on."

"It's not much of a plot yet, T'kamen, but they've realised Shimpath hasn't got long to go, and they're starting to take steps to secure their positions."

The bronze rider folded his arms, obviously still upset, but focusing more on C'los now. "Where does that put our campaign?"

C'los considered. "L'dro must have guessed that we have something in mind by now. If he's thinking about Shimpath's mating then he's thinking about possible rivals to Pierdeth, and that means Epherineth. He made a move against you today, but not directly. I think it's time you went public with your intentions."

"My intentions are only the same as every other bronze rider," said T'kamen.

"Not every bronze rider has a chance." C'los calculated swiftly. "There are twenty-one bronzes at Madellon now. Nine of them are over thirty-five Turns. Four, maybe five, are young enough but their riders don't have the edge. Santinoth is too young. D'feng and Sejanth don't have an ounce of popular support behind them. Peteorth…" C'los grimaced. Then he went on, "That leaves Pierdeth, Epherineth, and perhaps two or three others. Maybe Sewelth, or Izath. But their riders would be as happy to settle for L'dro again, and they wouldn't dare declare opposition."

T'kamen laughed ironically. "They'd end up like me."

C'los nodded. "On numbers, it's you against L'dro. That's the basis we've been working on. And since I had the foresight to start planning early..."

"Don't wrench your shoulder patting yourself on the back," T'kamen said sourly.

C'los ignored the comment. "We have a certain advantage. Those quiet talks you've been having with discontented riders have gone down well. Valonna's developing a backbone, thanks to Mine. Epherineth's in the shape of his life."

"As is Pierdeth," the bronze rider pointed out.

C'los shrugged. "We discussed this. Pierdeth's built for quick bursts of speed. Epherineth will destroy him in a long flight. If you want some practice, get him to chase a few greens and see how much distance he can get out of them." He grinned, unable to resist teasing, "Have him chase Indioth. She's a stayer. Remember?"

"That was a long time ago," T'kamen muttered. "Can we get back to the subject?"

C'los chuckled, glad that he'd provoked his friend's traditional reaction to any mention of that long-ago flight, then became serious. "You should make your opposition to L'dro known. Making the first public move in acknowledgement of Shimpath's imminence will win you a lot of respect. And I think it's time you talked to Valonna."

The bronze rider stiffened slightly. "Valonna."

"She's the Weyrwoman," C'los said. "Shimpath's rider."

"I know who she is."

"She's a big part of the plan, Kamen. You can't pretend she doesn't exist forever."

T'kamen's expression darkened. "She's the queen's rider. Of course she exists."

C'los sighed. "The woman comes with the job, T'kamen. And somehow you need to get her to like you."

T'kamen shot him a black look.

C'los shook his head. "Like you, dislike L'dro – C'mine's been working on her. But you have to get Saren out of your mind. You have bigger things to worry about right now than her."

For a long moment the bronze rider said nothing, staring straight ahead, tense in every fibre of his being. Finally he said, "I need to be with Epherineth for a while."

"I'll get the word around to our people."

T'kamen nodded, but his eyes were already distant.

C'los shrugged mentally, leaving T'kamen's weyr without further comment, heading for the ledge where his green waited beside Epherineth.

You worry about him, Indioth said perceptively.

Him, the mere receptacle of all our hopes and dreams? C'los sighed as he stepped lightly up to his dragon's forearm. Always have, girl. Always have.

Valonna could feel something strange as she made her way towards the top table in the dining hall.

The greetings of riders she had met in the last sevenday sounded strained, almost expectant, as if each person was waiting for something. Valonna looked cautiously around the tables. There was a pattern to the way people were sitting, she was sure of it, but she couldn't decide what.

"Good evening, Valonna," C'mine said softly, as she passed his place.

"Thank you, C'mine," she replied. The blue rider always put her at her ease.

Beside C'mine, C'los spoke unexpectedly. "Weyrwoman, why don't you sit with us tonight?"

Valonna saw C'mine look sharply at his weyrmate as she fumbled for an answer. "I should always sit with the Council at the evening meal," she said, paraphrasing something D'feng had once said.

"We can't deprive them of the Weyrwoman all the time," C'mine said to the green rider.

"Thank you anyway," said Valonna.

"We'll see you for the noon meal tomorrow," C'mine promised her.

As Valonna continued towards her place, she puzzled over the subtle evidence of disagreement between the weyrmates. C'mine and C'los usually seemed to enjoy the easy harmony of long association.

She stepped up onto the dais where the head table ran at right angles to the common tables of the dining hall. Most of the Council bronze riders were already seated, but without exception, each that she passed ignored her.

As usual, Valonna struggled with her heavy chair; as usual, neither S'herdo, on her right, nor D'feng, two places to her left, offered to help. She poured herself a cup of wine from the carafe on the table before her and sipped, her gaze ranging out over the tables, trying to pinpoint what was causing the tension in the room.

L'dro's hand thumped down on the back of Valonna's chair, making her start in surprise. "Weyrwoman," he greeted her, sitting down without further ceremony.

"Weyrleader," Valonna replied. She reached for the wine carafe and poured for the bronze rider.

L'dro drank off his wine in a single draught, but as Valonna went to refill his cup, he stayed her hand, and spoke over his shoulder to a passing steward. "You, bring something suitable for your Weyrleader to drink. This turns my stomach."

Valonna sat quietly while the steward brought several alternative vintages for L'dro's appraisal. The Weyrleader would generally drink whatever was set in front of him, and Valonna wondered what had prompted the display.

Choosing one of the wines, L'dro dismissed the steward and drank deeply of his new cup. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, surveying the dining hall with a satisfied expression. Valonna relaxed minutely: she had feared that L'dro's displeasure with the wine was reflective of his poor mood.

"There's a Gather at Peninsula North tomorrow," the Weyrleader said abruptly. "I thought we would…do you want to go?"

Valonna was taken aback by the offer, inelegant as it was. She peered cautiously at L'dro, wondering how he wanted her to react. The Weyrleader seldom asked her to accompany him to Gathers in their own territory, let alone those held at Holds outside Madellon's boundaries.

"I'd like that," she replied finally.

L'dro nodded, looking pleased. "Peninsula North is three hours ahead of us. We'll leave just after noon."

As kitchen women began to serve slices of roast beast onto the plates, the Weyrleader took a small loaf from the basket of bread and broke it in half, offering a piece to Valonna. She took it, mystified by L'dro's suddenly courteous behaviour, but reluctant to comment. The bronze rider had clearly had a good day, and Valonna had no wish to antagonise him by questioning his pleasant disposition.

"You've had a good day?" asked L'dro, almost as if reading her mind.

Valonna swallowed the bite of bread she had been chewing. "Yes, thank you."

"What have you been doing?"

"Well, I bathed Shimpath," she replied uncertainly. She had spent much of the day in C'mine's company, but she didn't dare mention him.

"Good. You should be looking after her. She's the only queen we've got."

"Is Pierdeth well?" Valonna asked dutifully.

L'dro smiled. "He's always well."

L'dro was never more good-humoured than when speaking of his dragon. Valonna nibbled at the good roast meat, to buy herself a moment's thought, then spoke tentatively. "I've compiled a report on the riders who'd like to move into those three Wingsecond weyrs on the ground level."

"Wingsecond weyrs are for Wingseconds," said L'dro.

"Yes, but all our Wingseconds are already weyred, and it seems such a waste to have those three going vacant…"

The Weyrleader paused before replying, as if gathering himself, and then replied in that same even, reasonable tone. "A low-level weyr is a privilege that must be earned. If we just gave them to anyone who wanted them, riders would have no incentive to work towards promotion."

"But what about all the riders who can never be promoted to Wingsecond because they ride greens or blues?"

Patiently, L'dro explained, "Anyone chosen by a blue or green doesn't deserve promotion. The dragons choose their riders wisely, Valonna. Queens and bronzes are superior over all the other dragons, and they choose the best and most deserving people to be superior over all the other riders. Blue and green riders are inferior to us, like their dragons are inferior to ours. That's dragon hierarchy. We're better than them, so we deserve better."

It wasn't the first time Valonna had heard the explanation, but as she looked out at the common tables below, her gaze automatically fell upon C'mine. He was so kind, so reassuring, so understanding. But his dragon was blue, and according to L'dro, that made him inferior.

Valonna looked at the bronze rider on her right: S'herdo, Helvianth's rider, a man of some forty Turns' experience, whose breath always reeked of the strong spirits he favoured, and whose clothing exuded a faint, sour odour of sweat. She looked at D'feng, on L'dro's left: meticulous to the point of being dreary, almost openly contemptuous of her.

Were these men really superior to C'mine just because they rode bronze dragons?

"What about my report?" she asked L'dro.

For a moment, Valonna thought the Weyrleader was going to issue an angry retort: irritation flashed briefly in his eyes, and his lips twitched in the start of a snarl. Then, almost as soon as it had materialised, the expression was gone. "Put it on my desk," he replied at last. "I'll read it after the Gather tomorrow."

They continued to eat in silence for several moments. The meal was fine: succulent meat, rich gravy, tender vegetables, and the best quality white bread. Even the wine L'dro had rejected was good.

So it came as a surprise when a rider sitting at the near end of one of the common tables shoved back his chair with a clatter, rose noisily to his feet, and cried out, "Faranth's teeth, how much longer do we have to put up with this swill?"

The buzz of conversation in the dining hall died instantly.

Valonna didn't recognise the rider: a burly giant of a man, despite the age evident in his white hair and craggy features, with a patch depicting a green dragon visible on the shoulder of his jacket, but inwardly she held her breath in anticipation of L'dro's reaction.

The Weyrleader had shot to his feet almost at the same moment as the old green rider. "Sit down, rider."

"A watch-wher wouldn't touch what we eat while you and your precious Council dine on prime fare!" the green rider spat, and seizing his plate, he strode to the head table and slammed it down amidst the dishes before L'dro.

Valonna recoiled as a splash of the plate's contents spattered onto her hand. The dish contained a thin stew, grey-brown in colour, containing unidentifiable lumps of what she presumed were meat and vegetables under a revolting slick of grease. The smell alone was enough to turn her stomach, and she wiped her soiled hand frantically on a napkin.

"A'keret, this man is one of your riders," L'dro said under his breath to the bronze rider on D'feng's left. "Deal with him."

"Sit down, S'mik, you're making a scene," A'keret hissed urgently to the green rider.

"I will not sit down!" S'mik roared. "Forty-six Turns I've been a rider of Madellon Weyr. I've seen five Weyrleaders sit in that chair, and you, L'dro, disgrace the title!"

Outside, a bass roar that could only have belonged to Pierdeth rumbled across the Bowl, but the voice of the green that responded was shrilly defiant. L'dro muttered under his breath, "Pierdeth, shut that green up!"

The utter silence that had followed S'mik's initial outburst had been replaced by a hushed murmur as more than two hundred riders and twice as many Weyrfolk watched and commented on the unfolding drama.

Pierdeth has silenced Belvonth, Shimpath reported, but the queen's tone revealed her distaste for the measure.

S'mik was shaking his head dully as his green's distress affected him. A'keret and another rider moved quickly to escort the dazed green rider away. But then the shriek as another chair was shoved roughly across the stone floor made everyone freeze, and as another rider rose to his feet, Valonna felt a thrill of recognition.

"Why don't you try asking Pierdeth to gag my dragon, Weyrleader?"

T'kamen spoke loudly enough to be heard by everyone in the dining cavern, but there was still a softness to his tone, a focused intensity in direct contrast to L'dro's furious outburst, but just as compelling. Every head turned, every eye drawn to the lean bronze rider as he stared with fierce dark eyes at the Weyrleader.

"I've had enough of starving him because the Weyrleader can't provide food for him. I've had enough of risking myself with old flying harness because the Weyrleader can't provide leather for new. I've had enough of subsisting on this slop while the Weyrleader dines on the few prime beasts that are left. And I've had enough of seeing riders repressed because of the colour of their dragons. I've had enough, Weyrleader, and I'm not the only one."

"No, T'kamen, you're not." On the other side of the hall, another rider stood up, and Valonna recognised L'stev, the old Weyrlingmaster. "I've had it to the back teeth."

"And so have I." Another rider, one Valonna didn't know, leapt to his feet. He raised his plate. "I've had my fill." And, raising the dish in the air, the rider dashed it vehemently to the floor.

As if the tinkling of broken earthenware had been a signal, riders began to stand up all over the dining hall, calling out their names and throwing their plates on the floor.

"B'stroc and blue Ivorth!"

"C'los and Indioth!"

"S'rius and Padseth hear you!"

"A'len and brown Chyilth!"

"Ashina and Kessemath!"

"T'rello and bronze Santinoth for T'kamen!"

"N'kro and green Vyroth! T'kamen!"

And on, and on, until dozens of riders were standing up, in every part of the dining hall, at every table, and the crash of plates was joined by a chant as the throng of green, blue, brown, and bronze riders took up the name of their champion, banging their fists on the tables and stamping their feet on the floor.

"T'kamen! T'kamen! T'kamen!"

Stunned by the accusations, and the show of opposition for her weyrmate, Valonna looked mutely at L'dro. The Weyrleader's face was ashen, his expression thunderstruck as he stared at T'kamen, as if he wasn't aware of the riders' chant, conscious only of the bronze rider who remained a point of still focus in the midst of the chaos that had erupted.

Then L'dro suddenly seemed to come to his senses, and he rounded on Valonna. "Control them! Control their dragons!"

"I can't," Valonna said helplessly, bewildered. "There are too many…"

Dismissing her, L'dro turned on his Wingleaders. "Bronzes!"

The deep bellows of a dozen bronze dragons seemed to shake the very stones of the Weyr, but three times as many voices responded in protest.

No more! Shimpath cried, and her single roar silenced every dragon.

But it was T'kamen whose soft command calmed the riot in the dining hall. "Enough."

Silence descended, within and without. Riders resumed their seats, some looking ashamed at their part in the upheaval, some still visibly filled with the frightening intensity of the moment, others seeming quietly satisfied.

Finally, only T'kamen and L'dro still stood, facing each other across the dining hall. L'dro was incandescent, his fingers curled into fists, his fury a dreadful, palpable force, and yet despite the staggering display of defiance, he still carried himself as the Weyrleader, the rightful superior of every rider in the Weyr.

T'kamen simply returned L'dro's glare, apparently unaffected by it, his expression calm and resolute. Then, finally, he turned from his place and walked from the dining hall, not in defeat, but in disregard for the rider he had just so publicly challenged.

Every eye that followed him from the cavern simultaneously swivelled to watch L'dro's reaction.

"…sit, just sit down and pretend nothing's happened…"

The whisper barely reached Valonna's ears, and it was with some difficulty that she recognised the voice as D'feng's. Sejanth's rider was speaking without moving his lips, advising L'dro undetected by all except those close enough to hear his murmur.

The Weyr watched as its Weyrleader sat down. L'dro reached for his wine cup, and his hand shook slightly as he gulped its contents. Then he picked up his knife, speared a slice of meat and started to eat.

Slowly, painfully slowly, conversation returned to the dining hall. Valonna lifted her own cup in suddenly nerveless fingers. Her heart was pounding and her thoughts were scattered. She didn't know what to think or where to look.

Automatically, her eyes sought out C'mine. The blue rider appeared troubled, but beside him, C'los' expression was animated as he spoke rapidly to several of the other riders at their table.

Valonna had heard C'los pledge his support to T'kamen, but not C'mine. A part of her hoped desperately that the blue rider had taken no part in the demonstration. Not C'mine: he wouldn't speak out in opposition to L'dro – would he? But perhaps his voice had simply been lost in the cacophony.

She stared at her plate, at the meal that had seemed so fine a short time ago. She had no appetite for it now, and even less to chew over what T'kamen had argued it represented: unfair privilege, abuse of power, and a way of things that the enigmatic bronze rider seemed set on changing.

C'los had managed to contain his delight until both he and C'mine were safely clear of the dining hall, and public scrutiny, but in the privacy of their own weyr, the green rider was almost hopping with glee. "Beautiful! Just beautiful!"

"It went as well as could be expected," C'mine replied cautiously.

"Better than that, Mine. Did you count the number of riders who spoke up of their own accord?" C'los shook his head, flushed with success, as he sought ink and fresh hide on their scroll-strewn table. "We couldn't have hoped for a better first show."

But the green rider's normally infectious grin failed to lift C'mine's unease. His weyrmate's strategy had worked: there was no doubt about that. C'los had chosen S'mik to spark off the demonstration, partially by merit of the older green rider's many Turns of experience – lending him greater credibility than a young rider – but mostly because S'mik was a known troublemaker who took an almost perverse pleasure in disrupting the status quo. They'd planted riders already sympathetic to their cause at every table with instructions to generate as much vocal support for T'kamen, or at least opposition to L'dro, as possible. C'los had even contrived to make the stew served to the common riders more spectacularly disgusting than usual.

The result of C'los' meticulous planning had been the impressive show of discontent. But C'mine felt as if that was all it had been – a show, a carefully rehearsed and polished performance, the audience's responses cleverly managed by a skilled director. C'los' manipulation of S'mik's anarchic tendencies seemed exploitative, the staged protest false.

But worst of all, C'mine felt that the real victim of the strife he had helped to engineer was Valonna. C'los' unexpected suggestion that she sit with them had been a blatant attempt to create the impression of a public rift between the Weyrwoman and L'dro. Whatever Valonna's actual feelings, she would have been considered guilty by association if she had been sitting with the chief engineers of the challenge to L'dro's superiority. C'mine was less than happy with his weyrmate for trying to make Valonna an accessory.

He had watched L'dro turn on the queen's rider at the height of the chaos in the dining hall, seen Valonna's genuine horror at the display, and her distress at L'dro's fury. From listening to her in confidence, without judging, C'mine had learned a great deal about the Weyrwoman's ambiguous feelings for L'dro. Valonna loved and feared the Weyrleader in almost equal measures: still young enough to be in awe of L'dro's decisive and bold manner, and still painfully eager to please him, she nonetheless lived in fear of his vicious, intolerant temperament. The Weyrwoman's disappointment in L'dro's change from conscientious suitor to callous brute was painfully clear. A part of her resented his transgressions, but she was more apt to forgive, or forget, or simply deny them.

Befriending the Weyrwoman had always been a key element in C'los' plot to replace L'dro, but taking advantage of Valonna's vulnerability through their friendship made C'mine deeply uncomfortable. He had grown fond of the young queen rider in the last several sevendays. She reminded him of his second youngest sister: timid, uncertain, self-effacing, but possessed of a hidden streak of natural calmness and competence that would make her an excellent Weyrwoman, if properly nurtured.

C'mine had been reluctant to bring up the subject of Shimpath's next flight with Valonna. Now that T'kamen had made his intentions known, he feared that the Weyrwoman would no longer trust him. He wouldn't blame her if she felt betrayed. Influencing Valonna in the hope of manipulating the outcome of her dragon's next mating made C'mine as bad as L'dro.

"Twenty-two spoke up for themselves," C'los reported exultantly, marking the figure down with a flourish and underlining it several times for emphasis. "Only three browns, and the ones we expected, but eight blues and eleven greens. Then the sixteen of us we know are definite already, seventeen including Chuvone. R'hren didn't speak up, nor did Jena or V'rai, but that's what we arranged. That gives us thirty-eight riders against L'dro on the first count. Three bronzes, six browns, thirteen blues, sixteen greens."

C'los' rapid tallies only partially registered with C'mine. He asked, "Where's T'kamen?"

"His weyr, I would guess," C'los said. His eyes went momentarily distant, and then he nodded. "Indy says Epherineth's on his ledge. Probably doesn't want to be seen back here straight away."

Quietly, C'mine asked, "How was he feeling about Saren when you talked to him earlier?"

"Well, not happy, obviously," the green rider replied. "But I think he understands that he needs to keep his mind on the Weyrleadership." C'los sighed. "It's the old wounds that are dangerous. If Saren had stayed on here they'd have settled by now, and she wouldn't be a distraction. I wish she'd never left. Anyway, T'kamen said his bit convincingly enough, and that's what counts."

C'mine was glad that his weyrmate had changed the subject. Sarenya's sudden departure from Madellon seven Turns ago was not a matter upon which he wished to dwell. "Kamen doesn't need instruction," he said. Then, uncharacteristically volunteering a controversial opinion, the blue rider added, "He doesn't even really need any help. Plans and challenges are fine, but when Shimpath rises, she and the bronzes will be all that count."

C'los regarded him in momentary bemusement, then shook his head, grinning. "If it was that simple, Mine, Epherineth would have won the first time. He's the better dragon. But Valonna wanted L'dro, and most of the other bronze riders were amenable. He's L'mis' son, remember."

"L'mis was marginalised by Fianine," C'mine said doubtfully.

"All her Weyrleaders were. That's at least partially why the Council are so intent on keeping Valonna subdued: Fianine was too powerful." C'los grinned. "Now Kamen's made his challenge, though, L'dro won't be able to push him around quite as much as he has. Everyone's going to be watching the pair of them. L'dro won't dare send him out on any more weyrling errands: it would make him look petty."

"L'dro is petty."

"Of course, but now he's had a well-supported challenge levelled against him, he can't afford to show it. We've made the entire Weyr aware that the leadership could change when Shimpath rises. That puts all the bronze riders on alert. But especially L'dro."

"And T'kamen," C'mine pointed out.

"And T'kamen," C'los conceded, "but at least his temper isn't what it used to be. Epherineth saw to that."

C'mine had to agree with his weyrmate. In his adolescence, Taskamen's quick temper had been his dominant characteristic. The bronze rider's basic disposition had not changed, but Epherineth had been a calming influence from the moment of Impression. The wicked temper that had once seethed so close to the surface was contained now, internalised. It was a definite improvement. Epherineth, like many dragons, had made a better man of his rider.

And T'kamen was a good man. Not open, not agreeable, not easy to understand or befriend, but honest, direct, and a stalwart friend. C'mine would never forget how fiercely Taskamen had defended him and Carellos in the difficult early days of their understanding, when the people of Kellad had regarded them with suspicion and unease. He had protected what others had reviled, and in accepting their unique bond without question, he had helped Cairmine and Carellos to accept themselves. It seemed so long ago – a lifetime ago – but C'mine would carry the memories, and his enduring friendship with T'kamen, to the end of his life.

So for all T'kamen's abrasiveness, C'mine knew the bronze rider would do right by Valonna and the Weyr. But increasingly, the means by which that end might be achieved were troubling the blue rider. Weyr politics on this scale seemed to have brought out the conniving worst in C'los, and while C'mine could not fault his weyrmate's cleverness, the relish with which the green rider manipulated events and people was subtly unpleasant.

"What next?" he asked quietly.

C'los rummaged through the hides on the table for a moment before pulling out one of his charts. "Next, we ask some of these people to come for a friendly drink and chat." He circled several names. "We have Kamen put himself about as much as possible, gathering support. We make all the unranked riders of the Weyr aware of how bad the conditions are for us. And it's definitely time that we got T'kamen and Valonna together in the same room. If you'll prepare Valonna for it, I'll see if I can persuade Kamen to be pleasant for an afternoon."

C'mine shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know, Los. I think it's too soon."

"Too soon?" C'los echoed. "Shimpath could rise at any time now. We don't have the luxury of waiting."

"I have no idea how Valonna's feeling after today. If she thinks we've been friendly to her just to help T'kamen win the Weyrleadership…"

C'los frowned. "Mine, she's a nice enough girl, and I know you've taken a liking to her, but she's the queen's rider. She gave up exemption from Weyr politics the moment she Impressed Shimpath. If we don't guide her…"

"Don't you mean 'manipulate her'?" C'mine asked, with a more overt hint of his aversion to the situation.

"Call it that if you have to," said C'los, serious now. "But if we don't control her, someone else will, and that means we get L'dro as Weyrleader for another five Turns, and Valonna continues to be treated like a drudge."

"I know. I know. But…" C'mine struggled to express himself properly. "It's just that the way we're trying to control events seems as dishonest as anything L'dro and D'feng would do."

"The end justifies the means. Once T'kamen's Weyrleader we'll all benefit, Valonna included." The green rider shook his head in exasperation. "Mine, getting tender-hearted about the Weyrwoman won't help matters. And it's not as if she's Sarenya." C'los shrugged. "Then again, if Sarenya had Impressed, we wouldn't have this problem with L'dro."

C'mine shook his head. "That doesn't make it any more acceptable for us to use Valonna."

"We're not like L'dro. We're not doing this for selfish reasons. Shards, C'mine, L'dro's abused his position for five Turns. We can't just stand by and let it continue, but neither you nor I ride the right colour dragon to effect a change. That's why we have to work through T'kamen, and Valonna." C'los sighed. "I know you don't like it much, Mine. You're too honest for politics. But if you want to make fire, you have to chew stone, however much it stinks."

"I suppose you're right," C'mine conceded reluctantly.

C'los squeezed his weyrmate's shoulder. "Not much longer. Once T'kamen's replaced L'dro, things will be much better all round."

But C'mine's concerns were not entirely assuaged, and as he helped C'los put the next stage of his intricate plan into action, the blue rider couldn't help thinking that even when the last of the stone had been digested, and the last of the flame had gone out, the firestone ash would reek just as strongly as ever.


	7. Chapter Six

It was just after dawn when T'kamen was roused by the sound of Epherineth shifting his weight on the ledge outside.

He rubbed a hand over his face, wincing at the rasp of stubble, and threw off his light quilt. _Something the matter?_

_I didn't mean to wake you._

T'kamen felt around for clothes in the darkness of his weyr, pulling a shirt over his head before drawing back the heavy hide curtain that separated his sleeping space from Epherineth's chamber. Enough light filtered in from the opening at the far end of that great cavern for him to locate the rest of his clothes. _Is the morning watchdragon on duty yet?_

_No. It's very early._

T'kamen poured himself a cup of water from the flask beside his bed, and walked out through his dragon's cavern, onto the ledge, to drink it. He ran his hand lightly along his bronze's side as he moved to stand beside him. _What's wrong? Is it Shimpath?_

Epherineth nuzzled his shoulder briefly. _It is and it isn't._

T'kamen sipped his water, looking out at the peaceful Weyr as he gave the bronze a chance to elaborate in his own time. Few dragons were awake yet: most of them still within their weyrs, a few others asleep on their ledges. It was early, despite the midsummer sun. Epherineth's favourite time of day.

Eventually, the bronze said, _She is awake but will not leave her weyr, although she wishes she could._

 _What's stopping her?_ T'kamen asked.

Something that might have been a growl escaped Epherineth's throat, and he turned a pointed gaze on the queen's ledge, far below across the Bowl. Pierdeth lay asleep there, his massive bulk sprawled across the entrance to Shimpath's weyr. _She doesn't want to wake her rider by making him move._

T'kamen fixed the sleeping bronze with a sober gaze. Pierdeth had been ostentatiously resident on Shimpath's ledge every night since the challenge, compared to perhaps one night in a sevenday before. L'dro wasn't going to let his position go without a fight, and from C'mine's increasingly frustrated reports, the Weyrleader's renewed solicitude of Valonna was having the desired effect.

He leaned against Epherineth's shoulder, letting his dragon's understanding presence ease his own frustration with the Weyrwoman. The girl was even more ineffectual than he had initially imagined. For all C'mine's assertions that she had begun to shake off L'dro's conditioning, she'd welcomed Pierdeth's rider back into her bed quickly enough. That she could be duped by L'dro's pretended affections spoke very poorly of Valonna's judgement, queen rider or not.

For the hundredth time, T'kamen wished that someone else – anyone else – had Impressed Shimpath. Or that Fianine hadn't died and left such a poorly prepared girl to assume the political mantle of Weyrwoman alone. Or even that one of the other Weyrs had been charitable enough to transfer a junior queen when Fianine's death had left Madellon with only one. The Peninsula had weyred three queens at the time of Valonna's accession to Senior Weyrwoman: had T'kamen been Weyrleader, he would have petitioned for one of them to take over Madellon, rather than leave it to the incompetence of a girl not yet out of weyrling training, and in L'dro's thrall to boot. But R'hren had been too easily swayed by the arguments of the majority of the Council that a Weyr should keep its population down during the Interval, and nothing had been done.

T'kamen had been more concerned about the severe inbreeding represented by a Weyr with only one queen, but his voice had been but one among many even then. The negative effects wouldn't be seen for many Turns with infrequent clutches, by which time the bronze riders of this Council would long since have gone _between_. Their selfish complacency made T'kamen seethe. The heroic lustre of bronze riders dimmed in these peaceful, Thread-free times: men who might have made brave leaders during a Pass grew fat and lazy on an Interval lifestyle where the greatest threat was that of stingy tithes from equally short-sighted Holders. Thread, T'kamen believed, brought out the best in dragonriders.

But the Red Star would not draw close again for another hundred Turns, when even the youngest of Madellon's riders would be no more. Was Pern to face another century of worthless dragonriders with nothing better to occupy them than petty internal politics? Were all Interval Weyrs as facile and corrupt as Madellon? Could any rider be heroic without ever facing Thread?

 _I'd like to eat,_ said Epherineth.

His dragon's immediate concerns disturbed T'kamen's train of thought. _How hungry are you?_

 _Quite._ The bronze gazed at the herdbeast pens, far below. _I could eat three or four of those._

_Have two to take the edge off, and we'll hunt out-Weyr later._

Epherineth crouched low, and T'kamen settled between the dragon's neck ridges, bracing himself against them in lieu of straps. _Go ahead._

The bronze launched himself from the weyr ledge at a half run, caught the air with his wings, and glided towards the beast pens. With the wind in his face, ruffling his hair, T'kamen closed his eyes, feeling momentarily free of the burden that had become his, no more than a dragonrider with his beast. He could hear the cool flow of air over and under Epherineth's wings, smell the tiny changes in air pressure and current, see through his far-sighted eyes, taste the sunlight on his hide, even sense the distant presence of what might have been the other dragons of the Weyr. Epherineth's enduring love and companionship wrapped around him, and T'kamen took strength and joy from the link he had never doubted, even for a moment, ever since Epherineth's Hatching. Not for T'kamen the startled disbelief of most boys newly Impressed: instead, the certainty, full and unquestionable, that in the eyes of the dragonet who had chosen him, he had found himself.

It was with regret that T'kamen drew marginally back from that most absolute contact with his dragon: a closeness matched only by the merging of their minds when Epherineth flew to mate, both more and less intimate, for in mating they were one being and single of mind, but in total sensory contact they were individuals freely sharing everything they were, hiding nothing.

Ordinarily, T'kamen was aware of the urges and sensations and emotions that filled his bronze's mind without actually experiencing them himself. Epherineth was hungry. That basic need was pre-eminent in his thoughts, and his desire to gorge himself on sweet, hot flesh was a maddening temptation, despite his rider's caution that he could take only two. With the hunger came a consciousness of his own physical fitness to hunt and kill: the flex of shining, silvery talons that could end a creature's life with a single swipe, the wicked sharpness of his fangs to the experimental touch of his tongue, the powerful muscles of his neck and jaws that would let him shake the life from his prey, then rip and rend flesh and bone, or fasten his teeth inescapably to the throat of a victim, to drain its blood. T'kamen hesitated over that last thought, wondering if Shimpath's time was near, but Epherineth desired meat, not blood.

The awareness of Shimpath lay just beneath Epherineth's immediate needs: respect, protectiveness, and desire, but no urgency. The bronze's instinctive knowledge of the queen's readiness to mate lay quiet. But his need to make her his when she flew was strong, made fresh by T'kamen's own frequent thoughts of Shimpath's next mating. Epherineth knew what his rider wanted, and with the constant reminder that the queen would soon rise, the bronze was well prepared for what lay ahead.

T'kamen sensed his own preoccupations reflected in Epherineth's thoughts, subtly altered by the dragon's perspective. His quest for the Weyrleadership equated with Epherineth's driving ambition to win Shimpath. His reliance on C'los and C'mine translated to the bronze's fondness for Indioth and Darshanth. His hatred of L'dro was matched by Epherineth's unwavering dislike for Pierdeth, and his respective reluctance and refusal to refer to bronze or rider by name. His frustration with Valonna…

 _You think too much,_ Epherineth said, with an odd note in his voice, interrupting T'kamen's concentration again.

 _So do you,_ T'kamen replied, half irritated, half amused. _I was thinking your thoughts._

 _Then you know that I'm hungry._ Epherineth landed a short distance from the herdbeast pens and dropped his shoulder meaningfully.

T'kamen dismounted, throwing a curious look at his dragon. _Don't get overexcited._

The bronze indicated his disgust at that notion with a low snort as he took off to break his fast.

T'kamen walked up to the fence of the enclosure, watching the herd begin to stampede in terror as Epherineth flew over it. The bronze banked one way, then the other, using his shadow to break up the pack, until two or three beasts separated from the rest. That was when he struck, stunning a bullock with a negligent sweep of his talons, then lunging towards a second animal, sinking his fangs into its hindquarters and dragging it, still screaming and struggling, within range of his claws. Two deft slashes dispatched both beasts, and grasping one in each forepaw, Epherineth surged aloft, to deposit his kills away from the paddock and devour them at his leisure.

The entire operation had taken the bronze less than five minutes. T'kamen admired his dragon's deadly skill, the experienced eye that had selected prime beasts from the herd and broken them away from the others. An unskilled dragon could kill or injure a dozen beasts with an ill-timed strike, but Epherineth's accuracy was exquisite.

"He's very precise."

The voice startled T'kamen, but even as he turned quickly from contemplating his dragon to face the speaker, he knew who it was.

"Journeyman," he said shortly.

Sarenya regarded him steadily for a moment, then took a bedraggled piece of hide from one of the pockets of her heavy wherhide tunic and made a note on it: undoubtedly, confirming that Epherineth had killed his quota of Weyr beasts for the sevenday. "Will two be enough for him?"

T'kamen would have liked nothing more than to walk away, but talk of Epherineth, and the Weyr's inability to meet his needs, was more than he could resist. "We'll hunt out-Weyr later today. He could take as many as three more."

Sarenya made another note. Her composure in the face of T'kamen's brusqueness annoyed him. "Then five beasts is his normal consumption in a sevenday? Is that standard?"

"For a bronze. A green or small blue might only need two. A green who's close to rising might take more, or less. Consumption is seasonal: dragons eat more in cold weather. Or if they've been exerting themselves with trips _between_ or long flights."

The journeyman nodded, still making notations on her grubby bit of hide. "And does Eph…does he favour one type of beast over another?"

The verbal slip was not lost on T'kamen: he narrowed his eyes, studying Sarenya's expression. "He prefers herdbeast, like most dragons. More body fat than wherries. More energy."

Sarenya finally tucked away her notes. "Thank you, bronze rider."

She turned without further remark, heading for one of the far paddocks. T'kamen watched her for a moment, then rapidly turned his attention back to Epherineth.

The bronze was poised over his first kill, the eviscerated carcass pinned beneath the talons of one forepaw, but his eyes, still showing agitated glints of hunger, followed Sarenya.

 _What are you doing?_ T'kamen demanded, irritated by his dragon's candid interest in the woman he himself was trying so hard to ignore.

Epherineth turned his attention back to his meal, pulling another mouthful of flesh from the dead herdbeast, before replying, _I was thinking_ your _thoughts._ Then, with a thoughtful certainty that made T'kamen go cold, the bronze added, _And I_ know _you're hungry._

* * *

"It's like talking to a bull herdbeast," said Sarenya, scrubbing sand into Darshanth's hide a little harder than necessary. "Except a bull herdbeast reacts more."

C'mine ducked under his dragon's neck, wading around to join her on the blue's left side. "He's got a lot on his mind, Saren."

She shook her head. "No, he's always been like that when he's confronted with something he doesn't want to face. He just puts those defences up, and nothing gets through them."

"More gets through than he'll admit, or show," said C'mine. "Go and rinse off, Darshanth."

They both stood back as the blue splashed out into deeper water. As he submerged to wash the soapy sand from his hide, Sleek and Tarnish took off from where they had been perched on his back, chirping indignantly, before diving in themselves to join him. Under the surface of the lake, Darshanth's vibrant colour was enhanced with the lighter blue of sunlight through clear water.

Sarenya felt hot and gritty from the exercise of helping C'mine scrub up his dragon. The sun beat down fiercely and, waist-deep in the lake, with the water reflecting the glare back up at her, she could feel it burning. With his darker skin, C'mine probably didn't notice as much, but the hot weather of the last few sevendays had been draining on man and beast. Even the lake's level had dropped, and sun-baked mud and withered plants marked areas that had been underwater until recently.

"I'm just going to swim a bit, to wash off," she told the blue rider.

C'mine nodded. "Go out to Darshanth, and he'll bring you back."

Sarenya sank to her neck in the cool water, enjoying the feel of it against her overheated skin. She swam out with lazy strokes, feeling the water wash away the tension of a long day's work with the herds, and the additional exertion of washing half a full-grown blue dragon. It was no wonder dragonriders had to be so fit.

When Sarenya was within thirty feet of Darshanth, the blue vanished beneath the surface again. She took a breath and dived down herself.

The lake was deep in the centre, easily deep enough for a dragon to swim freely. Sarenya watched Darshanth's graceful movements, noticing how he had streamlined himself, all four legs tucked back in line with his body, wings tight against his back. His powerful tail snaked from side to side, propelling him easily through the water, and his eyes shone like muted gems under his filmy first set of eyelids.

Sarenya could have watched him for hours, fascinated by how the dragon adapted a body designed for flight to an underwater environment, but she needed air. She broke the surface and gulped in a great breath, shaking her wet hair.

Underwater, something touched her foot, and then Darshanth came up underneath her. Sarenya half laughed, half gasped in surprise as the blue emerged from the water beneath her, and grabbed at one of the stubby ridges of his back, between his wings, for balance.

Darshanth turned his head to look back at her, his eyes gleaming blue and green. _You swim well, Sarenya, but not as well or as fast as I._

Sarenya scrambled forwards to the familiar security of the blue's neck ridges. "You're so full of yourself, Darshanth," she scolded him.

The blue dragon snorted playfully, and began to swim back towards the shore.

The hot sun had already half dried Sarenya by the time they reached the edge of the lake. She slid down Darshanth's shoulder, patting his forearm in thanks for the ride, and made her way up the bank to where C'mine was sitting.

The blue rider handed her a towel. "He was showing off again, wasn't he?"

Sarenya dried off quickly, then started to pull on her clothes. "Just a little."

C'mine got to his feet, picking up the bucket of oil he had brought out. "He just has a few itchy places, then he's done."

"Can I help?" Sarenya asked.

"Thanks, but he can show me exactly where he needs it, and it won't take a moment." C'mine touched a place on his dragon's neck, his fingers finding the slight roughness, then dipped his other hand in the oil and smoothed it into the soft hide.

"Does he need it all over?" she asked.

C'mine shook his head, moving on down his dragon's side. "He did when he was growing. But once dragons reach maturity, they aren't growing all the time, so the hide doesn't stretch so much, and since we aren't fighting Thread, we don't _between_ enough for problems to develop. I look after his itches, and he gets full oiling on special occasions." C'mine moved to Darshanth's off hind leg. "Can you imagine how much of this the Weyr would need if every dragon needed oiling all over every day?"

Sarenya watched her friend caring for his dragon, and the tenderness of their bond made her stomach knot with regret and frustration. To be a dragonrider, to share that most magical communion of heart and mind, was a wonder she would never know.

Darshanth rumbled, low in his throat, and Sarenya saw the compassion in the blue's jewelled eyes. _We understand_.

C'mine was looking at her too, from underneath Darshanth's half-spread wing. He picked up his bucket and came back to Sarenya, rubbing his blue's neck as he passed. "Darshanth speaks to you because he likes you, not because I ask him to. You know that."

Sarenya nodded, unable to speak for the sudden lump in her throat.

C'mine wiped his oily hand on the dry grass, then touched Sarenya's shoulder. "I know. It's not the same."

"But Shimpath chose Valonna," said Saren, and she knew the old pain and resentment she had never before voiced was in her tone.

"We all regret that," the blue rider said softly. "Me, Kamen, Los. But we're glad you're here now."

"Kamen isn't," she said bitterly. "Without a queen dragon, what use could I possibly be to him? C'los told me: L'dro asked for me to be posted here to make Kamen angry, to upset his chance at the Weyrleadership. I'm a thorn in his side. This morning proved that."

"That isn't why he is the way he is, Saren," said C'mine. "But he hasn't forgiven you for leaving, seven Turns ago. He hasn't forgiven himself for that." The blue rider paused, and then asked quietly, "Have you?"

Sarenya looked away from the blue rider. For a long moment she said nothing, forced to think about things she had been glad to leave untouched for Turns.

"I had to leave," she said finally. "I couldn't stay, C'mine. How could I have stayed, after what happened? How could I?"

* * *

Two girls were sobbing, and a third sat curled up on her cot, staring listlessly into space, still wearing her white robe.

Sarenya had already taken hers off, bundling it into the laundry basket in the corner of the chamber. The nondescript leathers of an apprentice Beastcrafter would draw less attention. She glanced around the space that had been hers, checking for anything she had overlooked, but she had brought few possessions, and spent barely two whole nights in this room. Sarenya hefted her pack to her shoulder and left without looking back.

The distant sounds of celebration from the direction of the dining hall made her grit her teeth. Sarenya took an indirect route to the outside, preferring to avoid any possible contact with people. She had successfully escaped note on leaving the Hatching Sands: not that it had been difficult, with a Weyr single-mindedly ecstatic over its new queen.

The memory of those brilliant eyes meeting hers was too fresh, and Sarenya forced the thought away as she emerged into the Bowl of the Weyr. Her steps led her to the weyr whose ledge was occupied by a single great bronze, and she steeled herself to enter.

_He's looking for you._

The dragon's voice was soft, but Sarenya couldn't respond to the unspoken plea. "I'm sorry, Epherineth. I just want to get my clothes and go."

The bronze didn't reply, but neither did he block the entrance into his weyr, and Sarenya quickly entered the cavern.

She made herself focus, finding the items of clothing she had left there and stuffing them into her pack. When she inadvertently picked up a shirt from the end of the bed that was not hers she almost wavered: his scent clung to it, evoking thoughts of the happy times she had spent in this room, in this bed.

_The queen chooses, Saren, and she'd be a fool to choose anyone but you. You have nothing to worry about…_

Sarenya threw the shirt away from her, the memory of T'kamen's quiet assertion taunting her. The disappointment in his eyes today had hurt her; the frustration in his voice had angered her. She couldn't be the Weyrwoman he wanted. And by the bronze rider's own vehement statement, _no green would ever choose you_ , she wasn't worthy to ride any dragon.

She had walked away from him then, as she intended to walk away from him now, a disappointment to him and a failure to herself, a mockery of the dragon whose instincts had judged her worthy to Impress a queen. An ironic laugh welled up from somewhere. How sure they had all been! T'kamen, C'mine, C'los; even the other candidates had recognised the inevitability of it. Sarenya of the Beastcraft would Impress the queen, T'kamen and Epherineth would win them in flight, and when Fianine had the courtesy to die of her wasting sickness, they would take over the leadership of the Weyr and live happily ever after. A Harper couldn't have spun a less likely tale, but like the fools they were they had believed it – and now the joke was on Sarenya.

So it was back to the Craft for her: back to the dung and the mud, back to birthing cows and shearing wool, to anatomy and dissection, to selective breeding and preventative medicine. Back to what she knew, and the sooner thoughts of Impressing dragons were out of her head, the better.

She tried to buckle her pack but, hastily filled, it was overflowing. Sarenya struggled with it for a moment and then gave up. She didn't want T'kamen to find her here.

She hurried past Epherineth, hoping he wouldn't speak, hoping that he wouldn't know what she was thinking and ask her to stay. But then why would any dragon ask her that, when she had failed the task his rider had set her?

Sarenya glanced around the Weyr that could have been her home, and went in search of the only rider she knew she could trust to take her away from it.

* * *

"I had to leave," Sarenya said again. "There wouldn't have been another clutch for Faranth knows how long – what would I have done? I was in my final Turn of apprenticeship; I couldn't have taken my exams here. I had to go back to the Hall."

C'mine just nodded. He'd always known when not to push her. In her own way, she knew, she was just as hot-tempered as T'kamen: that was part of the attraction between them, and accounted for most of the volatility.

"He doesn't blame you for being part of L'dro's intrigue," he said instead. "Kamen's a lot of things, but he isn't completely unreasonable."

Sarenya shrugged, staring at Darshanth. C'mine observed her with the same mixture of regret and sympathy as before. He was still convinced that Sarenya would have made a good Weyrwoman. He had seen the way she handled difficult animals and difficult apprentices with equal ease, demonstrating a natural authority over both that would have suited a queen's personality perfectly.

C'mine appreciated how difficult it must be for her to have the shadow of her failure to Impress seven Turns ago hanging over her. Even within the Weyr, the divide between riders and non-riders was marked: those who had stood and failed could contribute to the Weyr, but they would never have the prestige of one who had been deemed worthy by a dragon. Failed candidates occupied a class of their own, somehow diminished by what might have been. It didn't seem fair to C'mine. Sarenya deserved a dragon far more than half the dragonriders C'mine knew. Certainly, riders like L'dro and D'feng called a dragonet's judgement into question. A dragon's choice wasn't always good for the Weyr.

 _What dragonet has the sense to look ahead?_ asked Darshanth.

 _You don't think the dragon is always right_?

The blue rumbled. _Not even I am infallible. I chose you, after all._

 _I love you too._ C'mine looked at Sarenya, lost in her own thoughts. _Why didn't a dragon choose her?_

Darshanth regarded Sarenya with the peculiar, thoughtful gaze that indicated he was assessing her with his natural sensitivity. _A green would not…_ The blue hesitated, and C'mine knew that his dragon was struggling to put difficult, instinctive concepts into words. _A green would only have chosen her if there was no other. I would not have chosen her to Impress a green. A green would be…not right. Not a match._

Intrigued, C'mine asked, _If I hadn't Impressed you, would another colour have chosen me?_

 _No other dragon would have chosen_ you.

 _Seriously,_ C'mine pressed. _Is there something about me that makes me a blue rider?_

 _You're_ my _rider,_ Darshanth said firmly. _What else matters?_

C'mine gave up on that line, and asked instead, _What about Valonna? Would you have Searched her for a queen?_

Darshanth barely shrugged, disinterested. _Another did. I did not. Shimpath chose her: she was right for Shimpath._

_Do you think Shimpath would have chosen Sarenya if Valonna hadn't been there?_

_She_ was _there. Why do you ask about things that have already happened?_

_I'm just curious._

Darshanth stretched his wings. _I'd like to sun up by the Star Stones. It's warm here, but warmer there._

_Go on, then._

The blue extended his neck to Sarenya, touching her shoulder with his muzzle, and startling her out of her thoughts. C'mine heard his dragon's remark. _Thank you._

"You're welcome, Darshanth," Sarenya replied, stroking the blue's nose. "Glad to help."

Darshanth ambled a few paces downwind, then sprang aloft and beat steadily up to the level of the Rim. C'mine watched until his dragon found a place between two greens, then looked back at Sarenya. "He says he wants to sunbathe, but he's probably just gone to cosy up to the ladies."

Despite her obvious distraction, Sarenya smiled wryly. "He still loves to charm, doesn't he?"

C'mine nodded. "He'd try for Shimpath if he thought he could get away with it." The mental image amused him: Darshanth was barely half Shimpath's size – but Sarenya was frowning again. "What is it, Saren?"

The journeyman squinted up at the blue, then at C'mine. "If Darshanth could fly Shimpath, would you want him to?"

"Me?" C'mine smiled. "I'd be a terrible Weyrleader. I'm just not built for that responsibility."

"You've always taken responsibility for your friends, Mine," Sarenya said quietly.

C'mine shook his head. "Anyone can listen."

"Not everyone understands, or cares like you do." Sarenya touched his arm. "C'los is lucky to have you."

He chuckled. "Now you're making me blush."

"Really, Mine. You've been such a good friend to me. Even when I left."

"You did what you felt you had to, Saren," he said.

"You think I was wrong?" Sarenya asked.

C'mine sighed. "It wasn't for me to decide."

"But I know what you risked losing by helping me." She paused. "Did C'los know?"

"No." C'mine smiled sadly. "Even weyrmates have to keep things from each other sometimes."

* * *

Darshanth's summons had been cryptic, but C'mine had been happy to excuse himself from the celebration to answer it. He didn't feel like celebrating, although the queen's Impression should have been a joyous occasion for everyone. C'los had gone to do his duty by a distant cousin who had Impressed a brown, leaving C'mine alone to worry about where Sarenya had gone after the Hatching, and what would happen if she and T'kamen ran into each other with both in such an emotional state.

So it was with both concern and relief that he recognised the Beastcraft apprentice, half hidden in his dragon's shadow, when he reached the weyr. "Saren, are you all right?"

"I asked Darshanth to call you, Mine, I'm sorry if I was presumptuous."

"No, of course not." C'mine peered more closely at Sarenya: there was an odd note to her voice that he couldn't decipher. "Are you all right?"

The apprentice emerged into the dim light so he could see her. "T'kamen isn't with you?"

C'mine shook his head. "I haven't seen him since the Hatching."

"Good." Sarenya took a deep breath, then looked directly at the blue rider. "I need to go, Mine."

"Go? Where?"

"Back to the Craft. Back to the Hall."

That took C'mine off guard. "Saren, you don't have to leave. You didn't Impress today, but there'll be other chances…"

"C'mine, I'm nineteen. This was the first clutch in more than three Turns; L'stev told us that. In another three Turns, I'll be too old." Sarenya shook her head. "I didn't Impress, and there's no place for me here anymore."

"You say it as if you're in disgrace," said C'mine. "Saren, there's no shame in not Impressing."

"Why don't you go and ask T'kamen about that?" Sarenya demanded hotly. "He made it pretty clear how disappointed he was in me for upsetting his ambitions to become Weyrleader! I wasn't good enough to Impress the queen; I'm not even good enough for a green!"

"That's not true," C'mine insisted.

But Sarenya was not to be soothed. "He said I would Impress, and I believed him, C'mine. How could I not have believed every word he says? Wingleader T'kamen, Epherineth's rider, perfect in everything he says and does…but he was wrong about me, wasn't he? He thought I had it in me to Impress the queen, and I let him down. And he wasn't shy about telling me so!"

C'mine couldn't believe T'kamen had been so blunt: the bronze rider was candid, certainly, but not totally insensitive. "He's not angry with you – he's upset for you. We all are."

"I can believe that from you, Mine, but not from him. Don't think I didn't see how all the other bronze riders were treating their candidates. What made T'kamen any different?"

"He loves you," C'mine replied frankly.

The words visibly affected Sarenya, but she brushed them aside. "He deigned to let me in his weyr, just like all the other bronze riders who wanted a head start on the future Weyrwoman."

He persisted, "Kamen's not a good enough actor to fake it, Saren. He might not be the best communicator, but he's always been honest with the feelings he cares to show."

"He was honest about his disappointment in me, too!" Sarenya looked at C'mine with regret in her eyes. "Mine, I'm sorry, I'm not angry with you."

"You don't have to apologise," he told her gently. "It's all right."

The apprentice Beastcrafter looked away. "Will you take me back to the Hall?"

"Now?" The immediacy of her request alarmed him. "Saren, you're upset. You should give it until the morning, at least."

"I don't want to have to face Kamen again."

"Sarenya…"

Softly, Sarenya said, "I'm serious, Mine. I don't want to see him. I can't face that look in his eyes again."

C'mine empathised with her so strongly: her own keen disappointment at failing to Impress had been compounded by T'kamen's attitude, and he could hardly blame her for wanting to run away. They should never have built up her expectations so. "Saren, I don't want you to leave. What can I say to convince you to stay?"

Sarenya shook her head. "C'mine…please."

There was a note of pleading in her voice that C'mine hated to hear. If he took her back to the Hall, T'kamen would be incandescent. He could lose one of his oldest friends. But Sarenya did not beg lightly, and the desperate entreaty in her eyes was more than C'mine could stand to deny. "If that's what you have to do…"

Sarenya gripped his hands. "Thank you, Mine."

He took Darshanth's harness off the rack just inside the weyr and started to rig it on his dragon's neck. "T'kamen will kill me if he finds out I helped you."

"He doesn't have to know."

"No one will have to know." C'mine glanced up at the dragon on watch: on a Hatching night, the green would surely never remember every pair coming and going, but it might be wise to evade her notice anyway. _Are you feeling up to going_ between _low?_ he asked Darshanth.

_Omyath won't see us._

C'mine pulled himself up to his dragon's neck and reached down to give Sarenya a hand. "We're going _between_ early, so don't be alarmed," he told her as he passed the fighting strap around her waist.

Sarenya just nodded. "I'm ready."

He concentrated for a moment, forming the visual of Peninsula South Hold. _It'll be darker there, Darshanth._

_I know where we're going._

_When you're ready._

The blue took off immediately, leaping at a shallow angle and scarcely ensuring that there was clear air around him before transferring _between_ in the sort of risky manoeuvre that would have guaranteed them a reprimand from L'stev in their weyrling days.

When they reappeared above the dark bulk of Peninsula South, C'mine could feel Sarenya's arms around his waist, her cheek resting against his back, and he felt a wrench at the prospect of losing the intelligent, independent apprentice who had so naturally integrated into his closest circle of friends.

Darshanth landed close to the long, low form of the main Southern Beastcrafthall, slightly to the west of the Hold, and C'mine turned to unbuckle Saren's straps by feel in the darkness.

Sarenya tossed her pack to the ground, then hesitated. "Thank you, C'mine. I'll miss you."

"We'll visit," C'mine promised. "And any time you need us, whatever it's for, just send a message."

They hugged for a long moment, awkwardly. C'mine could hardly see her in the darkness, and he was sure she blotted tears on his shirt, but he wouldn't have embarrassed her by commenting. "You take care, all right?"

"You too, Mine." Sarenya dismounted, and C'mine heard her murmur thanks to Darshanth. Then she called softly, "You'd better get back to the Weyr before you're missed."

C'mine looked down at her, still unsure if he had done the right thing. "You're certain about this, Saren?"

"Yes." Then, with forced lightness, she added, "I'd better go and see if they'll let me in at this hour."

C'mine stayed just long enough to see Sarenya gain admittance at the porter's lodge of the Hall, and then with a heavy heart, he directed Darshanth aloft, and home.


	8. Chapter Seven

T'kamen was accustomed to the attention by now, but he still didn't like it. He kept his expression impassive as he walked through the dining hall to his place, pretending not to notice the glances that followed him. Since the scene of a fortnight ago, the entire Weyr had seemed to be waiting breathlessly for him to do something dramatic. The most dramatic thing T'kamen ever did in the normal course of events was pass up dessert, but the constant scrutiny was irritating him.

He would have made a point of missing the evening meal altogether if C'los hadn't advised against it. T'kamen grudgingly conceded that he needed to be visible. Retreating back into the reclusive lifestyle he had chosen for himself since losing his Wing just wasn't a viable option for a man trying to win popular support.

There were several empty places at T'kamen's normal table. He took a seat next to L'stev, acknowledging the brown rider's gruff salutation with a brief nod, and looked over towards the Harper platform where C'los and C'mine were finishing a set with the Weyr Singer. C'los and Jenavally had put their instruments aside to sing one of C'los' own compositions, tenor and alto respectively, and the deep tone of C'mine's four-string provided a reflective bassline.

_It could have been the summer of my discontent._   
_But on that night,_   
_the endless dusk was heaven-sent._   
_Of summer's days it was the longest of them all._   
_And so I fell,_   
_though I thought night would never fall._

_I'd never seen an evening, blinded by the light._   
_I'd never seen the moons,_   
_enraptured by the summer twilight._   
_Never knew the solstice power burned so bright._   
_Never thought I'd live my dream on a midsummer night._

"F'digan's planning another snap inspection tomorrow," L'stev murmured to T'kamen, as the three riders began the second verse.

T'kamen declined the wine passed down the table, opting to pour himself klah instead. "How did you find out?"

The brown rider snorted back a laugh. "L'dro ordered it while F'digan and Benreth were out-Weyr, and he wasn't very careful about who ran the message down to the ready room."

"Who was it?"

"Kasibor. Green rider from the last clutch, which is why L'dro used her. Everyone still treats those kids like weyrlings. She's one of T'rello's admirers."

T'kamen shrugged. "They can inspect all they like. They won't find anything wrong."

"I'd wager they'd like to, and not just so they could haul you up on neglect charges," L'stev growled.

Unconcerned, T'kamen sipped his klah. "The only thing wrong with Epherineth is that the Weyr can't supply enough beasts to fill his stomach."

"That goes for every non-Council dragon," said L'stev. The brown rider looked thoughtfully at T'kamen, and added, "Mind you, you might be best off hunting him lightly anyway. If the queen takes it into her head to mate when Epherineth's just gorged himself, all this will have been for nothing."

T'kamen nodded, making a mental note to put off hunting his bronze out-Weyr for a few more days.

A burst of applause greeted the end of the song, enthusiastic at many of the common tables, although at the Council table only R'hren acknowledged the musicians. T'kamen glanced across at the other bronze riders. Most of them had been pointedly ignoring the music altogether, and L'dro actually had his back to the Harper platform as he conversed with Valonna.

T'kamen studied the Weyrwoman for a moment before looking away. The girl looked happy to be the focus of L'dro's attention, but she seemed smaller and less significant than ever. T'kamen understood from C'mine that Valonna's work with non-Council riders had continued since the challenge, but none of it had made the least bit of difference to overall conditions in the Weyr.

C'los, C'mine, and Jenavally took their places at the table, completing the usual line-up, and it was not without guarded affection that T'kamen regarded his closest friends. Crowded around the plain table, their conversation loud and unashamed, their table manners as poor as their jokes as they reached across each other for wine pitchers and bread platters, the inauspicious mix of riders could not have contrasted more strongly with the long line of bronze and brown riders arrayed in sullen silence at the Council table.

"Appropriate choice of material there, for the time of Turn," L'stev commented to C'los.

The green rider beamed. "I wrote it for Mine." Then he raised his voice meaningfully. "It's our anniversary."

"Not until the nineteenth," said C'mine, without looking up.

C'los subsided. "Just testing."

"Have you noticed how low the lake's got?" asked Jenavally.

They all nodded: the drought, and its effects on the Weyr lake, had been a topic of conversation for several days now.

"Never known a summer like this," said L'stev.

"The harvests will suffer if it keeps up," C'los added. "Any of you flown over Kellad or Jessaf recently? The fields are parched."

"And yet there's been flooding across half the North," said Jenavally. The Weyr Singer shook her head. "We might all be tightening our belts come the winter."

Talk centred around the unusual aridity for a time. T'kamen half listened, taking in the conversation for future consideration, but his thoughts were elsewhere. Try as he might, he had not been able to banish Sarenya from his mind since seeing her that morning, and it was bothering him. He usually had better control over his thoughts.

 _You're doing this, aren't you?_ he accused Epherineth.

The bronze didn't respond, and for a moment T'kamen thought his dragon was going to profess innocence, but finally Epherineth replied. _You want to talk to her but you won't._

_I don't have anything to say to her._

_You don't want to think about her, but you do anyway._ The bronze paused, then added, _You're very confused._

_I am not confused, Epherineth._

Epherineth's scepticism needed no words. _I don't understand why you still hurt so much from something that I can't even remember._

_You can't remember the day before yesterday._

Patiently, the dragon said, _I know the important things. You think about them, and I remember. I know we once led a Wing. I know you have challenged Pierdeth's rider. But you won't let me see when you think about_ her _. I only feel, and I feel you hurting._

T'kamen closed his eyes. _It's history, Epherineth._

_Not when it still hurts._

He couldn't argue with that kind of logic. _All right. Just don't expect me to go through it all again in a few days when you've forgotten._

* * *

Prising confirmation out of L'stev that Sarenya had left the Weyr had been easy enough: the Weyrlingmaster was more concerned with the day-old dragonets than with breaking the news gently.

T'kamen hadn't stopped to think. Furious, he had vaulted astride Epherineth's neck without even pausing to harness the bronze, and ordered his dragon _between_ to the Beastcrafthall.

It hadn't taken long to find the journeyman on duty in the porter's lodge, or to intimidate the man into telling him where a certain apprentice was likely to be. Few people would defy a dragonrider, least of all a Wingleader in a bad mood.

Now, as Epherineth glided over the neat fields towards the group of runner-mounted Beastcrafters, T'kamen suddenly regretted his impetuosity. The sight and scent of a fully grown bronze dragon terrified the animals, and T'kamen saw each crafter struggling to control a mount gone suddenly hysterical with fear. Epherineth landed downwind, so at least his scent wouldn't frighten the beasts, but two of the crafters had already dismounted from their fractious animals and were heading purposefully towards them.

T'kamen got down from his dragon's neck, and all his anger returned as fresh and raw as ever as he laid eyes on Sarenya. She was clad once more in the anonymous scuffed and worn wherhide jacket that protected her from most of the general hazards of a Beastcraft apprentice's exploits, but there was sheer fury and outrage in her eyes.

"What under the Red Star do you think you're doing bringing a dragon here!" she hissed at him. "One of us could have been thrown!"

"Sarenya," the other crafter, a heavy-set older journeyman, warned her, but his tone was stiff as he addressed T'kamen, his eyes moving over the dragonrider's visible epaulettes. "Bronze rider – Wingleader – is there something we can do for you?"

T'kamen was in no mood to deal with a self-important journeyman, so he ignored the man entirely and fixed Sarenya with a furious glare. "You thought you'd just go without telling me? Walk in and out of my weyr as if it belongs to you and then leave under the cover of darkness?"

"We had nothing more to say to each other!"

"What about an explanation?"

"An explanation?" Sarenya laughed, shortly and without humour. "What's to explain? I didn't Impress."

"That doesn't mean you have to leave!"

Sarenya shook her head, as oblivious, or indifferent, to the journeyman's presence as T'kamen. "You don't understand at all, do you?"

"What don't I understand? You left without telling me!"

"It wasn't meant to be, bronze rider! I wasn't meant to Impress, and you surely don't think I'd stay on at the Weyr!"

T'kamen felt that as if it was a physical blow. Exercising almost painful restraint, he said carefully, "You didn't have to come back here. You could have stayed with me."

Sarenya stared at him with an incredulous expression. "Don't you get it, T'kamen? I'd rather be here." Her blue eyes blazed with indignant anger. "But then you couldn't understand that, could you? You can't believe that anyone would prefer anything to you and your precious Weyr. You're so secure in the absolute truth of your own beliefs that there's never any room for doubt, but you can't just leave it at that – you have to convince other people that you're right too, don't you? Well, not this time, _bronze_ rider. Go back to your Weyr, pursue your ambitions, but do it without me!"

The savagery of Sarenya's outburst stunned T'kamen briefly, but the moment the apprentice turned her back on him he reacted, lunging to seize her arm and pull her around to face him. "Sarenya!"

"Take your hands off me!" she snapped, wrenching her arm from his grip.

T'kamen moved again to follow, but the stocky journeyman Beastcrafter intervened. "I'm sorry, Wingleader, but I think you should leave."

"Get out of my way," T'kamen snarled.

But the journeyman was resolute. "I think you should leave," he repeated. "Now."

 _Come,_ Epherineth said, before T'kamen could physically push the man aside. _There is nothing more to be done here._

Angrier than ever, hurt, embarrassed, T'kamen stared past the journeyman at the uncaring back of the woman who, for a moment, he had dared to believe he could love.

Then he turned and walked stiffly back to his dragon, vowing never to be so careless again.

* * *

Ancient history or not, T'kamen didn't relish recounting the details of that day, even to his dragon. The memory of his humiliation, and his youthful impulsiveness, was still fresh enough to make him squirm. But perhaps more troubling was that, even seven Turns on, with all the change and growth he had experienced, Sarenya still had the power to turn him into that angry young man.

 _I see,_ said Epherineth.

_Do you?_

The bronze paused for a long, thoughtful moment, and then asked, _Why were you angry with her when she didn't Impress?_

_I wasn't angry with her._

Epherineth expressed his disagreement with a mental snort.

 _How would you know?_ T'kamen asked. _You can't remember._

_You just told me._

T'kamen frowned. Epherineth's fine-tuned perceptions unnerved him at times. _All right, I was angry,_ he admitted. _She should have Impressed. I was sure she would._

_You were angry with her because she wasn't what you thought she was?_

He wrestled with the question. _From the moment I saw her, I knew she'd make a superb Weyrwoman. Darshanth, too, and he's not often wrong. That's why we petitioned for her to be released from her apprenticeship to stand. She was wasted on the Beastcraft._

Epherineth was silent for another long moment. T'kamen sipped his klah: it was cold now, but finding more would mean passing the Council table, and he wasn't in the mood to deal with L'dro's sniping.

Opposite him, C'mine said softly, "You have that look on your face, Kamen."

T'kamen started out of his thoughts, looking at the blue rider. "What look was that?"

C'mine smiled. "The one that says Epherineth's giving you a hard time."

He frowned irritably. "Why is it that everyone thinks they know better than me today?"

C'mine was unmoved by his short temper. "What's on your mind?"

T'kamen exhaled, staring into the middle distance. C'mine was a good listener, and T'kamen would have put his life in his hands without thinking twice about it, but he didn't entirely trust his friend to be impartial when it came to Sarenya. The blue rider had never made any secret of staying in contact with the Beastcrafter in the Turns since she had left Madellon. Besides, it was bad enough that Epherineth knew about his preoccupation: T'kamen didn't need the rest of the Weyr laughing at him as well. "I'm tired of this situation," he replied finally, and then realised how ambiguous an answer it was.

C'mine regarded him for a moment with that patient gaze of his. "Do you mean the situation with Valonna, or the situation with Sarenya, or both?"

"Shard it, Mine, is it that obvious?" T'kamen asked disgustedly.

"Maybe to those who know you, Kamen, but there are few enough of us." The blue rider looked across the dining hall, and T'kamen followed his gaze to where Sarenya was sitting.

He observed the journeyman in detail for the first time since he'd brought her back to Madellon. Seven Turns had done little to change her physically, but it was plain that the girl he had known had matured. It was in her every movement, her every expression, in the greater experience and certainty in her eyes. The journeyman knot on her shoulder was part of it, too, and T'kamen noticed how the other journeymen on the table, from whatever Craft, listened to her with courtesy and respect, for all that she was still new in the Weyr. But Sarenya had always found interaction easy, where T'kamen's patience with people ran so rapidly thin, and her natural rapport with human and animal alike had made her stand out even to one without the benefit of a Search dragon.

"It's been Turns, Kamen," said C'mine. "Maybe it's time to put the past behind you."

"Is that what she'd like?" T'kamen demanded, stung by C'mine's gently reproachful tone.

"It's what _I'd_ like," the blue rider replied. "You're both my friends, and I don't like having to tread softly around the pair of you because of something that happened so long ago."

T'kamen picked up his cold klah and brooded over it. The memories were as fresh as ever, even Turns old. "How's Valonna?" he asked shortly.

C'mine eyed him with resignation at the deliberate change of subject. "Delirious," he replied, looking towards the Council table.

T'kamen glanced at the Weyrwoman, listening attentively to one of L'dro's gesture-heavy anecdotes, and then looked away again in disgust. "I don't know where you find the patience for her, C'mine."

"She loves him," the blue rider said sadly. "Misguidedly, but who am I to tell her that?"

"You're too soft, Mine," T'kamen groused. "Pity cases always were your great weakness."

"So Darshanth tells me," C'mine agreed. "Like rider, like dragon, and he took pity on _me_ that day."

"As I remember it, Darshanth was one of the first to break shell, and he raced two of his brothers to reach you first," T'kamen replied dryly.

"He claims otherwise," the blue rider said, with a distant, fond smile. "Not that he can remember, but he does love to make me feel grateful."

"And I thought Epherineth gave _me_ a hard time." T'kamen pushed his klah mug away, his mood subtly lightened by his old friend's effortlessly soothing company.

"It's what they do best, Kamen." C'mine paused, and then added, "Those of us whose dragons push us, test us, question us – we're the lucky ones. They make us better people."

As T'kamen absorbed the blue rider's typically offhand philosophy, he felt a strange mixture of agreement and reservation from Epherineth.

 _What was that supposed to mean?_ he asked.

The bronze took his time answering, as was his wont, but when it came, the reply set T'kamen to thinking, too. _A dragon may change his rider for the better, and that is as it should be. But if he does not, has the rider changed the dragon for the worse?_

C'mine had noticed the look on T'kamen's face. "What did Epherineth say?"

Frowning, T'kamen related his dragon's words.

"That's profound," said C'mine. "Ask him if he thinks the fault could only ever be with the man? That the dragon would only improve the rider, and the rider corrupt the dragon?"

 _A dragon brings nothing to Impression save what he is,_ Epherineth said. _A rider brings a lifetime of experiences, for good or ill. A dragon cannot make a truly bad person good, or a truly good person bad: he can only reflect and strengthen what was already there. The dragon changes the rider, for the man before and the rider after are as different as night and day. But the rider makes the dragon, for without the rider a dragon was, is, and will be, nothing._

C'mine chuckled when T'kamen repeated back Epherineth's remarks, but his tone was respectful. "I bet you never knew he was such a philosopher, Kamen."

T'kamen shook his head, slightly thrown by the intricacy of his bronze's thoughts. "Then the rider changes the dragon more than the dragon changes the rider?" he asked aloud.

 _The rider_ makes _the dragon._

C'mine asked, "But doesn't a dragon choose his rider initially on the basis of a compatible personality?"

Epherineth mused over that for a moment when T'kamen put the question to him. _Compatible, yes. Identical, no._

"He has a point there," T'kamen said to C'mine. "Darshanth and you aren't the same."

The blue rider looked pensive. "We are, and we aren't. We think the same way on most things." He smiled. "Darshanth is just more vocal about them than I am. We complement each other, like you and Epherineth."

"Do you think we're alike?" T'kamen asked curiously.

"You're both quiet enough, most of the time," C'mine said, with the hint of a tease in his low voice. "Impressing Epherineth improved your temper."

"Not completely," said T'kamen, remembering again with a wince that long-ago fight with Sarenya.

C'mine nodded. "Never completely, but enough. He gave you restraint."

T'kamen considered his dragon's startlingly complex pronouncements. "If the rider makes the dragon, then what did I give him?"

The blue rider smiled. "Fairness, responsibility, and dedication to those he cares about." Then he added, "A little wherry-headed pride and stubbornness, too, although that isn't necessarily a bad trait in a bronze."

"Thanks," T'kamen said ironically. But his bad mood had lifted now, through the efforts of his dragon and one of his closest and oldest friends, and he felt somehow refreshed for the companionship.

 _Do you think about this kind of thing often?_ he asked his bronze.

Epherineth's tone was amused. _I think about what you're thinking about._

_Evidently._

_Sometimes it's even interesting._

T'kamen couldn't help smiling as the last traces of his black humour evaporated. _Ungrateful watch-wher._

Epherineth snorted, pleased with himself.

* * *

Sarenya had opened the shutters wide, but the evening air that circulated sluggishly into her room was hot and dusty and gave her no relief. The Beastcraft cot was a low stone building, and her room was on the corner of the block, adjacent to two other individual rooms for journeymen. The common room provided a buffer between the journeyman quarters and the rowdier apprentice dorm, but even with both her windows open Sarenya couldn't hear anything: it was too hot even for the noisy junior crafters.

She poured herself another mug of cool juice from the pitcher she had brought from the kitchens after dinner, and struggled against the heat to focus on her notes. Master Arrense had given her leave to continue the studies that would ultimately build to her own Mastery, Turns from now, in the hours immediately after the evening meals, but on oppressive nights like these Sarenya felt as limp and listless as the herdbeast penned outside, too exhausted from the heat even to low their misery.

Even Tarnish, who loved the hottest sun, sprawled with his wings slightly extended, suffering in the humidity. Sarenya guessed that, like her, the bronze fire-lizard missed the offshore breezes that had always made Blue Shale so comfortable, even in the height of summer. Sleek had been making himself scarce since the start of the hot spell, returning only when he wanted attention, but the bronze fire-lizard seldom strayed far.

Saren forced her eyes to the tiny, neat lines of script on the hide before her: notes on runnerbeast digestive disorders that she had copied down at some point in her third or fourth apprentice Turn. At the Weyr there was limited opportunity for her to study runners. There were a number of riding animals that a Beastcrafter could take to meet the regular drive of food beasts from the lower pastures, or to reach the more remote pens within the Bowl itself, but they were sturdy old creatures, inured to dragons from Turns of residence in the Weyr. The ancient, lame, or broken-down runners that found their way into the herds intended for dragon consumption were equally unsuitable for in-depth study. Sarenya and the other Weyr journeymen routinely checked each new food animal – runner, herdbeast, and wherry – for sickness, and then left them to their unenviable fates.

Sarenya's work with fire-lizards at Blue Shale Hold had been considered an appropriate field of expertise for a female Beastcrafter but that was the very reason Sarenya had no desire to specialise in them. As an apprentice at the Beastcrafthall, she and the few other girls had been outnumbered ten to one by boys. Her uncle's Mastery in the Craft had been as irrelevant then as it was now: Sarenya had learned early on that, as a girl, she would have to work twice as hard and get twice as dirty as any of the boys to garner equal respect. Where she had met discrimination she had worked harder, defying even the most misogynistic of her teachers and peers to dispute her competence. Where she had met her own limitations, she had compensated by increasing her knowledge to make up for what she lacked in brute physical strength, reading every Craft journal and record she could find, often in her own free time. In knee-deep mud and appalling weather conditions she had wrestled with sick animals, with those in pain, with difficult births; returning filthy, exhausted and soaked to the skin, but with the satisfaction of knowing she was as tough and competent as any of her classmates.

Her first journeyman contract had been to a group of four backwoods cotholds looking to Scarp Hold in Southern territory, and Sarenya had spent most of that assignment fighting for the respect she had so painfully won during her apprenticeship at the Hall. Much later, she realised what she had learned from the suspicious and grudging welcome she had received at the Scarp cotholds, but at the end of that awkward Turn she had been glad to return to the Hall and the prospect of a better placement.

The Blue Shale posting had also started out as a single Turn, but the more cosmopolitan Holders had accepted her immediately, and her Master there didn't have a single discriminatory bone in his body. After the end of Sarenya's first Turn, Kaddyston had petitioned the Hall for her to stay on, working with the comprehensive range of stock essential to the running of the Hold.

Sarenya had enjoyed her work with the Hold's fire-lizards, fascinated by their habits, and had even written several observational papers on them, which Kaddyston had sent back to the Hall. But after so many Turns proving her worth as a Beastcrafter with the heavy working animals, she felt that to take the easy, comfortable option with fire-lizards – useful messengers at best, glamorous pets at worst – would be to betray her own principles. Why should she fall in line with the still prevalent opinion that women weren't tough or strong enough to handle large animals?

She still wasn't sure how she felt about her transfer to Madellon. The knowledge that it had been a political move – and on the part of L'dro, a man she had disliked on sight even seven Turns ago – galled her, and the Beastcrafthall's apparent willingness to agree to her mid-contract transfer on such spurious grounds was disturbing, but Sarenya supposed she had to make the best of it. The other Beasters were a friendly lot, if under considerable pressure due to the shortages, and Arrense as Weyr Master was a fair man. Sarenya had only vague childhood memories of her uncle, and by unspoken agreement, neither had mentioned their blood ties to any of their colleagues.

The prospect of learning about dragon-healing was intriguing, and indeed Arrense had mentioned that she might like to spend some time with those most specialised crafters once she had settled into Weyr routine. The demand for crafters trained to care for dragons was not high. Sarenya had never heard of a dragon getting sick, and the typical ailments an adult dragon might suffer – strained muscles and other injuries from mating flights, broken talons, hide irritations – were mostly minor. Weyrling dragons were prone to a greater range of problems, usually when their inexperienced riders failed to care for them properly, but with no young dragons, the infirmary was all but empty. Threadscore simply wasn't an issue, and accidental burns from careless flaming were infrequent, as most Wings drilled with firestone only every other sevenday. Nonetheless, Sarenya felt that gaining some knowledge of dragon care would be appropriate.

She loosened the collar of her shirt, but the air was too humid to cool her. The notes on runnerbeast sicknesses blurred in front of her eyes, and with a frustrated sigh Sarenya pushed them away, leaning back in her chair. It was too hot to think, too hot to work. She rose from her desk, opened the door, and then stepped back, surprised.

T'kamen was standing in the doorway. The bronze rider's hand was raised, as if he had been on the verge of knocking, and his expression was as startled as Sarenya imagined her own probably was.

They both stood there dumbly for a moment, and then Sarenya found her voice. "Is there something I can do for you, bronze rider?"

T'kamen looked at her, the muscles of his jaw tensing minutely: subtle but visible evidence of his agitation. "Will you walk with me?"

The lack of a stony edge in T'kamen's voice came as a welcome surprise to Sarenya. She studied his face, but there was not, and never had been, a hint of deception in the velvet-brown eyes that could be so fierce and so gentle, although seldom the latter. "Of course."

Sarenya used the few seconds it took to close and lock the door behind her to wonder what had prompted this most unexpected visit. Had C'mine said something? It wasn't like the blue rider to force a situation.

They walked towards the edge of the lake in silence for a few moments, uncertain but not entirely uncomfortable. Glowbaskets, hanging from posts at regular intervals along the bank, cast their yellow-green light on the oily-looking water.

Glancing sideways, Sarenya noticed that the bronze rider was wearing only black and white, as usual. She had never seen him wear another colour, although C'mine had once commented, cryptically, that T'kamen's austerity of dress represented his desire to put the past behind him. T'kamen had rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt: another habit of his that Sarenya had forgotten. It was the small things that hurt the most.

T'kamen must have noticed her covert look, for he paused mid-stride. Sarenya halted too, loath to speak first while she had no idea of his intentions.

The bronze rider looked out across the lake, his eyes focusing on a point in the distance, and then back at Sarenya. "I apologise for my behaviour over the last few sevendays."

He spoke stiffly, holding himself quite still. Sarenya immediately realised how much the apology had cost T'kamen. The proud bronze rider did not readily admit that he was wrong.

"It's forgotten," she replied. "I'm…aware…of your situation with L'dro." As if she could be oblivious to it, after the public challenge T'kamen had made in the dining hall on the first night of Sarenya's posting.

T'kamen's rigid stance relaxed fractionally, but there was still tension in his bearing. As if trying to conceal it with movement, he started walking again, placing his feet carefully on the crumbling baked mud, although his shoulders stayed straight and his eyes remained fixed in the distance.

Sarenya paced him, wondering again what had prompted the bronze rider to approach her. She remembered similar instances of trying to read him during that pivotal first month she had spent at Madellon as a candidate. T'kamen always had been heavy on motive and light on explanation.

At last T'kamen stopped again, abruptly, and as Sarenya checked her stride, she saw that the rider was staring straight at Shimpath, resting on her ledge on the other side of the Bowl. Sarenya made herself look at the queen, aware suddenly that she had been avoiding a close study of the dragon she had last seen as a hatchling, passing her over in favour of another.

"Why did you go?" T'kamen asked.

Sarenya's gaze moved over the fine conformation of the queen, over the sunny copper-gilt hide, the graceful lines of neck, wing, tail. "Without her, I could never be your equal."

She heard herself speak, her words calm and reasoned for all that she had no recollection of forming them, or even the thoughts they conveyed. But then quite suddenly she knew, or remembered, or realised, why Impressing Shimpath had been so important, and why failing to do so had wounded her so deeply.

Sarenya looked at T'kamen, vaguely seeing his perplexity, but her thoughts on a time long past. "I still remember the first time I saw you, T'kamen. Standing by Epherineth's shoulder with that look on your face, the look only dragonriders have. _Bronze rider._ You could never have been anything less.

"That was it, you see: you had nothing to prove. You were a Wingleader. A bronze had already chosen you. What better endorsement could a man hope to have? But me – I was nothing. An apprentice – a Beastcrafter – a girl. And I loved you, T'kamen, but I knew from the very moment I agreed to the Search that unless I Impressed the new queen, I wouldn't be good enough. That would be the real test of my worth. When Shimpath judged me for herself, she judged me for you, too."

"Sarenya," T'kamen began, but Sarenya shook her head.

"Everyone was so sure," she went on. "But it was Shimpath's choice, and when she chose Valonna, I knew how arrogant I'd been. How complacent of me, to believe that having always succeeded, I could never fail. How presumptuous, to think I could second-guess a queen dragon."

Sarenya focused on T'kamen, seeing something that might have been sick comprehension in his eyes. "I couldn't have stayed with you as your inferior, Kamen, and you never understood that," she said, almost apologetically, although she didn't know why. "You thought I'd be content merely to be your lover. That's why I left."

The bronze rider regarded her with an expression half of disbelief, half consternation. "Saren, the rank meant nothing. Wingleader of fewer than a dozen riders during an Interval…"

"T'kamen, you've always been ambitious," said Sarenya. "You've had your sights set on the Weyrleadership since long before this business with L'dro, and I know how much pride you took in your Wing. But the fact that you would always rank me was only part of it." She paused. "I couldn't face living with your contempt."

"What?" T'kamen demanded, his tone instantly incredulous. "I've never been contemptuous of you!"

His indignant retort only served to make Sarenya angry. "I've never forgotten what you said to me after that Hatching! That I wasn't even good enough for a green!"

"I never said that," T'kamen objected.

" _No green would ever choose you,_ " Sarenya snapped, savagely quoting the bronze rider's own words, still painfully fresh in her mind, back at him.

"That wasn't what…I didn't mean… Sarenya, I didn't think a green _would_ choose you, but not because you weren't good enough. Because you were _too_ good." T'kamen shook his head. "I don't even know if that's accurate to how dragons choose their riders: Epherineth's been saying some things about Impression – but Saren, it was never intended as an affront. It was meant to be a compliment, to make you feel better…"

That revelation staggered Sarenya, and for a moment she was at a loss for words. How could she so have completely misunderstood him? But T'kamen didn't lie… "You humiliated me when I went back to the Hall," she said, but the outrage with which she had viewed that shocking breach of etiquette seemed insignificant now.

The bronze rider's dark eyes flashed with suppressed anger. "I followed you because you left without telling me!"

Sarenya shook her head, trying to grasp the apparent greyness of areas that had always been so polarised in her mind. _No green would ever choose you_ …now that it had been pointed out to her, she could see the reassuring commiseration that had been inferred in T'kamen's words, and yet she had instantly jumped to the conclusion that it had been an attack.

"I couldn't stay," she said, but even as she said it, she recognised the feebleness of the affirmation.

She hadn't _wanted_ to stay, but only in part due to the reasons she had already given the bronze rider. Yes: she had perceived T'kamen's reaction to her failure to Impress Shimpath as a slur, but perhaps because she had wanted a reason to resent him, to somehow ignore the immense blow to her pride that the queen's rejection had dealt. She had focused on his apparent contempt for her in order to protect herself from her own. Hating T'kamen for his slight had been so much easier than having to face her own fallibility.

Sarenya felt dizzy, as if her world had just shifted dramatically. She had run from the truth just as she had run from the Weyr, but now both had caught up with her. She couldn't stand to fail, or even to admit that she was capable of failure. For all the times that she had spoken of that day seven Turns ago, she had never fully accepted it. She had simply made herself believe that Shimpath had been mistaken in choosing Valonna.

So few would ever have suspected Sarenya of conceit. Justified pride, perhaps: an admirably stubborn confidence in her own abilities, but not conceit. She had never needed to be openly arrogant. Now, she wondered if the covert egotism that was at the very centre of who she was had been the very factor that had turned the hatchling queen away from her.

Sarenya looked at T'kamen, seeing the storms in the bronze rider's expression, and knew what a terrible disservice she had done him. For all his many faults, Epherineth's rider had one crucial virtue over her: he had the courage to admit it when he was wrong. Sarenya might be a journeyman now, a position on a par with that of an unranked bronze rider, but she was still a lesser person than he.

"I'm sorry, Kamen," she said weakly. "I got it all wrong…I'm sorry."

The dragonrider frowned, and his eyes went briefly vague. Then, as focus returned to his gaze, he asked in an oddly gentle voice, "What is it, Saren?"

_Speak, Sarenya._

The voice that Sarenya heard was like T'kamen's, and yet not, but Epherineth's soft command could not be ignored.

She spoke of what she had realised, her words sometimes halting, sometimes falling over themselves; stripped of her normal confidence, but trusting, perhaps desperately, in man and dragon. T'kamen's expression barely changed throughout her rambling explanation, save for a narrowing of his eyes, and when she finished, it was a long moment before the bronze rider replied.

"You've been carrying this for a long time, Sarenya," he said finally. "Epherineth says since even before that Hatching. A need to prove yourself up to the standard you believe necessary: the standard you keep inside." T'kamen hesitated, and there was fierce compassion in his eyes. "I understand. Before Epherineth, I had it too. You're right: being the rider of a bronze dragon does mean I have nothing to prove – he already judged me worthy of him, and that's enough to satisfy me. I don't know why Shimpath didn't choose you. I don't know why any dragon chooses the rider he does. For all that Epherineth tries to explain, I'm not sure I ever will. But I do know that dragons judged you worthy of a queen, and even though yours never Hatched, you meet _their_ standards."

Sarenya struggled with the excess of thoughts and emotions flooding her mind, wrestling them down one by one until something like calm had returned. "So what now?" she asked, distantly aware of the triteness of the question.

T'kamen turned his head, eyes piercing unerringly through the darkness in the direction of his weyr ledge. "Now, maybe my dragon will stop bothering me about you."

The compassion had left his eyes, but so had the cold hostility, and once more T'kamen was just a man, albeit it a man carrying a heavy burden of responsibility. Sarenya knew that that, too, was something she would eventually have to face.

But when the bronze rider had walked with her back to the Beastcrafter cot, said a brief farewell and vanished back towards his weyr, Sarenya felt strangely light, despite the humid air. The old wound had been cauterised, and if knowledge of its ultimate inflictor was painful in itself, at least she knew now what she had to face. And that now the oldest of breaches had begun to heal, maybe she wouldn't have to do it alone.


	9. Chapter Eight

"Dismissed," said F'digan, and the abrupt scrape of his chair against the floor indicated the Wingleader's normal eagerness to escape the Wing meeting and get on with more important things.

T'kamen didn't look up from the slate upon which he had been sketching F'digan's chosen formation for the afternoon's drill. It was a nonsense, as usual. The brown-riding Wingleader always insisted on flying point, although Benreth was small for his colour, and in taking the lead position in every formation he tended to disrupt the pace of all the dragons behind. Faranth forbid he put the one bronze pair in his Wing in a position that even suggested leadership. Even putting L'stev and Vanzanth on point would be an improvement: the tough old brown was not far off the size of a smaller bronze. But F'digan, like most of Madellon's Wingleaders, cared less about practical fighting formations than he did about what was most flattering to his own ego. Wing drill was so infrequent under L'dro that it was a wonder the Weyr had Wingleaders at all. The rank was little more than ornamentation in a Thread-free Interval.

Absorbed in his criticism of F'digan's formation, a meaningful cough from T'kamen's left was necessary to make T'kamen look up.

Seven of the eight remaining members of the Wing were on their feet, standing to attention behind their chairs. L'stev remained sprawling in his seat, wearing an expression halfway between grin and grimace. E'vahal who, nearing his seventieth Turn, counted as the eldest, was almost impassive, but there was a gleam of approval in his eye. The youngest, T'sten, looked even more boyish than his twenty Turns, but he held himself proudly, and he was the one who spoke. "T'kamen, sir. Permission to withdraw?"

T'kamen eyed the other wingriders warily. He wasn't comfortable with the show of deference, but at least it was sincere. His old Wing had been broken up and reassigned, and with the exception of L'stev, these riders had never known him as a leader, but F'digan wasn't popular with his wingriders.

It wasn't his place to give the command, but then each rider knew that, too. "Granted," he muttered, half amused.

One by one the seven riders saluted him and departed, T'sten throwing him a grin over his shoulder as he went.

"Don't look at me," L'stev growled, before T'kamen could say a word.

T'kamen leaned back in his chair. "Was that approval, disapproval, or just disbelief I saw in your expression then?"

The former Weyrlingmaster shrugged. "It was T'sten's idea, and he's always had that contagious enthusiasm. Not that Gerah or E'vahal would have played games with a weyrling if they didn't agree with the sentiment."

T'kamen looked down at the notations he had made on his slate, his eyes idly tracing the asymmetrical formation. "It's a little premature."

"Acting as if you were already Wing and Weyrleader? Yes. Throwing their support behind you?" L'stev shook his head. "They've flown with you for three Turns. They know what kind of man and rider you are better than most. Accept the compliment, T'kamen, and their confidence." The brown rider considered for a moment. "Though if word gets out, it's bound to shorten the odds on you again. By the shards of Vanzanth's shell, I'm glad I don't have a class to keep in hand at the moment. I don't know how I could stop them from betting every mark they have on this."

T'kamen was unmoved by the talk of gambling, and completely uninterested in the current odds for and against him. C'los kept track, insisting that it was a good gauge of the Weyr's support, but T'kamen had been somewhat distracted from the campaign for the last few days.

Since Epherineth had nudged him into talking to Sarenya, T'kamen had felt a great weight ease from his shoulders, a burden so familiar he had not even recognised it until it had lifted. For the first time, he could think back on that memorable month seven Turns ago without bitterness. Things were not the same: the impulsive, spontaneous passion that had sparked so readily between himself and Sarenya would not easily be rekindled. But the old poison was gone, and something had eased between T'kamen and C'mine, too. The blue rider's delight at seeing their reconciliation, albeit partial, was tangible. C'mine was far too subtle to start throwing them together in the hope of provoking something more, but T'kamen was no longer reluctant to visit his friends' weyr because of the possibility that Sarenya might be there. The issue of the Weyrleadership seemed somehow very distant and abstract to T'kamen's newfound lightness of spirit. It was easier to ignore the bilious remarks of L'dro's ranking cronies, F'digan's heavy-handed approach to leading the Wing; even the food didn't seem quite as bad as before.

"You remember C'los wants us all there for a progress meeting after lunch?" L'stev asked.

T'kamen nodded. "More diagrams, I imagine."

"It keeps him happy, and he knows what he's doing," said L'stev. "C'los has his faults, all right, but he's one of the sharpest riders I've ever trained."

T'kamen picked up his slate. "He always was."

They left the Wing ready room together. The contrast between the coolness of the cavern and the blazing temperature outside was marked, and T'kamen squinted against the sun. The wild cry of a green dragon in heat made him pity the flight participants: it really wasn't the weather for such exertions. He watched as the green hurled herself aloft, several males after her, and automatically his gaze moved to Shimpath's ledge.

The queen's colour was vibrant in the sun, but there was none of the glowing luminescence about her hide that the green had shown. T'kamen doubted that he would see any visible sign of Shimpath's readiness to mate before Epherineth sensed it, anyway. In that respect he deferred completely to his dragon's judgement.

L'stev came up beside him, following his gaze. "She's a good-looking young queen," he remarked. "If Vanzanth was any younger – and if she wasn't senior…."

"You have the choice, at least," said T'kamen.

The brown rider snorted. "That's as may be, Kamen, but not a chance, even if he had the impulse. There's no brown here who could compete with even the weakest bronze."

T'kamen watched Shimpath critically. Young and strong, yes, but without the sleek strong lines of a fighting dragon. Even in an Interval, a queen flew less than any other dragon. "If she wasn't senior…Epherineth would still chase. He doesn't have the option."

"Price of a bronze, Kamen," L'stev said succinctly. "I taught you that Turns ago."

"He's always chased," T'kamen said slowly. "Cherganth, twice. He'd barely reached his full size the first time. She was too experienced for him; the older bronzes knew her ways."

"I remember the first green Vanzanth ever took it into his head to chase," said L'stev. "Thirty Turns older than him. He choked on her dust."

T'kamen smiled slightly. "Young queen, young bronze. Epherineth has a better chance at Shimpath now than he's ever had against a queen. But…" He stopped.

"She may not be what you want, T'kamen, but she's all we've got," L'stev told him. "And like it or not, you're the best chance we all have to turn this sorry Weyr around."

"As if I could forget," T'kamen replied ironically.

"Does it bother you?" the brown rider asked.

T'kamen considered the question. "Only in the sense that I don't like having my every move watched and analysed."

"But you don't feel under pressure?"

He shook his head. "I understand the necessity of popular support. But the only obligation I feel is to myself, my dragon and my friends."

"And to beat L'dro?"

T'kamen shrugged. "He's a bad Weyrleader, and he's made himself my enemy. But he was always the one who had something to prove as a weyrling, not me."

"I remember thinking that might be the case before he even Impressed," said L'stev. "He was his father's only son, and he always was little too conscious of the fact that L'mis was sometimes Weyrleader – when Fianine chose. A green or blue might have been the making of him, but Pierdeth just confirmed the opinion Leddrome had of himself." The brown rider chuckled. "Then you Impressed Epherineth: you, with your Trader background and your ignorance of the Weyr, and your friends Impressing blue and green, and showed the little tail-fork that there's more to being a proper dragonrider than being the Weyrleader's son and riding a bronze."

"Sometimes there's less to riding a bronze than being a proper dragonrider," said T'kamen.

"Too often, when a Weyrleader like L'dro is setting the example," L'stev agreed. "We've been lucky with young T'rello. I thought the lack of another bronze in his class would go to his head, but that, and his youth, seems to have made him less competitive. And petty competition between weyrling bronze riders has been the bane of my time as Weyrlingmaster, T'kamen." The brown rider scowled at him. "Watch how Epherineth mates Shimpath, you hear? I don't want any more than one bronze in a clutch. They'll send me _between_ before my time."

T'kamen smiled briefly as the gruff old brown rider walked off towards his waiting dragon.

"I'll see what I can do," he murmured, to himself.

* * *

The new gown was beautiful. It had arrived less than an hour ago, brought to Valonna's weyr by one of the blue riders from Shimpath's first clutch, and she had signed and sealed Tailorcraft papers to confirm its safe delivery. The young rider had hastened back to his dragon with the receipt, visibly anxious to discharge his duty.

It hung in Valonna's weyr now, resplendent in gilt-coloured satin, trimmed with delicate lace, hung with sparkling glass beads: exquisite in every way.

Except that it was too big on her hips, too small on her waist, too low fronted for propriety, and matched neither the slippers nor the jewellery L'dro had given her to wear at Turn's End.

Valonna gazed at the gorgeous, useless dress, and despaired.

The last month had left her as dazed as she had been in the early days of her time as Weyrwoman. T'kamen's open challenge in the dining hall had made her painfully aware that, much as she had hated it the first time, she was once again going to be the centre of attention until Shimpath rose again. And while Valonna was eager for things to go back to normal, she anticipated her dragon's mating flight with trepidation.

L'dro had been attentive and solicitous to her needs since the other bronze rider had made his challenge. Valonna wasn't a complete fool. She recognised L'dro's transparent efforts to curry her favour for what they were. But that didn't stop her feeling pathetically grateful for his kindness.

Things were the way they were meant to be again: the way they had been for the first three Turns of Shimpath's life. L'dro treated her with a courtesy and generosity that went beyond gowns and trinkets. He had escorted her to half a dozen major Gathers, north and south, insisting on only the very best for her, speaking glowingly of her skills as Weyrwoman to the other Weyrleaders and Lords they encountered. Once, a man had pushed carelessly past her, jostling her into the dust at the side of the thoroughfare through the Gather stalls. L'dro had pursued the offender, bringing him back to offer an abject apology. Then L'dro had purchased Valonna another new gown to make up for the dusty condition of the one she had been wearing.

Valonna knew he was going out of his way to please her for the sake of the Weyrleadership: she _knew_ it, but she couldn't bring herself to believe that there was nothing more to it. L'dro had become complacent, yes, but perhaps after Pierdeth won Shimpath's second flight, the bronze rider would be grateful, and reward Valonna with his fidelity as Shimpath had rewarded Pierdeth. Perhaps the threat posed by the other bronze riders of the Weyr would finally make L'dro settle to her.

Perhaps.

But what was the alternative? A bronze rider Valonna didn't know, didn't understand – didn't love. A bronze rider L'dro loathed, despised, for reasons Valonna had never dared to ask, but that must be valid to inspire such depth of hatred in the Weyrleader: T'kamen: a rider Valonna rarely saw, and barely knew but by reputation. Valonna dreaded L'dro's bad moods, but at least she had grown accustomed to them. The prospect of being forced to learn how to handle the black tempers of a strange man frightened her.

Still, the prospect of having to tell L'dro that the priceless gown he had commissioned for her was all wrong scared Valonna, too.

 _Pierdeth's rider made the mistake, not you,_ Shimpath said from outside. You _should be angry with_ him.

 _It wasn't his fault,_ Valonna protested. _He wanted to surprise me with it: he couldn't arrange a fitting._

 _To surprise you with a gown that you cannot wear is not thoughtful, Valonna,_ said the queen, in a rare tone of reproach. _If he's angry with you because he got it wrong he is even less thoughtful._

 _He's trying, Shimpath,_ Valonna insisted. _He's trying so hard, and I don't want to upset him._

The young queen rumbled disapprovingly. _Why don't you go and see Darshanth's rider?_ she suggested. _He always makes you feel better._

_I can't, it's his anniversary._

Shimpath was silent for a moment, and then she said, _Darshanth says C'mine says you're always welcome._

Valonna was more surprised by her dragon's naming of the blue rider than the fact that she had spoken to Darshanth unasked. _You never say names, Shimpath._

 _I like C'mine,_ the queen replied offhandedly. _He's kind to you._

 _Did you bully Darshanth?_ Valonna asked suspiciously.

Shimpath was indignant. _I wouldn't bully him._

Valonna sighed and shook her head. _Maybe later._

She gazed at the lovely gown L'dro had given her. It was so beautiful. Maybe she could wear it anyway… But it wouldn't be right on her – too big in some places, too small in others, wrong, overall. If she wore it, she knew she would always be grateful to L'dro for the stunning, if imperfect, gift. If she didn't, L'dro would be angry – he might even be unfaithful again, and Valonna couldn't bear that – but at least she wouldn't feel so indebted to him.

Valonna reached out to touch the gown. Against the shimmering fabric, her hand looked pale and sickly, a washed-out reflection of its golden magnificence. It was too rich a hue for her. She would never be able to wear this gown as if it had been made with her in mind.

Gold, she realised with a sick, sinking feeling, never had been her colour.

* * *

T'kamen finished oiling the steel buckles of Epherineth's fighting harness and set the work aside, wiping his hands on the rag dangling from his belt. As an afterthought, he pulled the cloth free, folded it, and tossed it back into his leather-working kit.

As he headed into the cool dimness of his sleeping chamber to find a clean shirt, T'kamen felt his stomach growl, and he realised how long it had been since the previous night's dinner.

 _I told you to eat,_ Epherineth said reasonably.

T'kamen pulled off his grease- and sweat-smeared tunic and found a fresh shirt, pulling it on and rolling up the sleeves but leaving it open. It was too hot to stifle in heavy clothes. _Los and Mine will have something._

Abruptly, Epherineth's amusement changed to indignation, and T'kamen heard his dragon demand, _What do you want?_

 _What is it?_ he asked, straightening the collar of his new shirt as he strode out onto the weyr ledge to investigate the cause of the disturbance.

Another bronze was perching awkwardly to let his rider dismount. There was no room for two dragons on Epherineth's ledge at the best of times, and T'kamen's dragon had come to angry attention at the invasion, huge and bristling, the facets of his eyes edged with red. T'kamen put a calming hand on Epherineth's shoulder, distractedly noting the reversal of their normal roles, and stared up at their unwanted guest. The smaller, darker bronze was Alonth, and his rider, H'ersto, was ranked Flightleader, a senior member of the bronze rider Council.

T'kamen watched grimly as the older rider made an graceless dismount, neither offering assistance nor asking Epherineth to move aside. "What do you want?" he demanded, unconsciously echoing his bronze as the Flightleader sent Alonth away.

H'ersto was a small man, with a build that had once been stocky and was now becoming stout, and the weakness in his face that all the senior bronze riders who had served under Fianine as Weyrwoman seemed to share. "A moment, T'kamen, just a moment, to catch my breath…"

T'kamen folded his arms. "What is it?"

"Could we at least go inside?" the Flightleader panted.

T'kamen was perspiring in the full sun, too, but he had no intention of offering this man any hospitality. "What do you want?" he asked again.

H'ersto glanced furtively around, as if anyone might be listening so high up in the Bowl. "I really shouldn't be here, risking myself. But, T'kamen, you're the rising star in the Weyr, and I have a proposal for you."

T'kamen started to turn away. "I'm not interested."

The sweating little Flightleader held up his hands. "Just hear me out, T'kamen. For the sake of the friendship we had when you rode in my Flight…"

"That friendship ended the day you gave my Wing to a brown rider," T'kamen said coldly.

"I know, T'kamen, it was a terrible thing to happen to a good working relationship, but I had to heed the Weyrleader's wishes. You're a reasonable man: you surely see the position I was in!"

"I see you very clearly, Flightleader," said T'kamen, disgusted.

"But L'dro's time is ending," the little man pressed on. "Anyone can see that, with the popularity you have. Madellon wants a new Weyrleader. _You._ But just one thing stands in your way."

"I don't think I need to hear any more of this," T'kamen said, trying to turn aside again.

"Hear me out, T'kamen!" H'ersto urged him. "All the blue and green riders of Pern could support you as Madellon's next Weyrleader, but when all's said and done, they can't help you where it really matters."

"And you can?" T'kamen asked, with heavy sarcasm.

"When the queen rises, bronzes chase," H'ersto told him, as if he was imparting some great secret. "And _that's_ where Alonth and I can help you. Oh, Alonth could never catch Shimpath. But if he got in Pierdeth's way…"

T'kamen couldn't form a reply for several moments, shocked. "You'd interfere in a mating flight?"

"In the heat of mating, who could say what's interference and what's sheer chance?" H'ersto's expression became crafty. "And it's no more unfair than trying to alter the outcome in advance by building popular support. Think about it, T'kamen. With Pierdeth out of the running, Epherineth would have no competition."

T'kamen felt sick. To influence opinions in the Weyr was one thing: to deliberately plan to obstruct a dragon in the flight itself was another. It defiled every law of respect for dragonkind. That H'ersto would consider such a thing, whether or not it was even possible, was repellent. "And what would you get out of this?"

"Me?" H'ersto's eyes went wide with feigned innocence. "Why, nothing but the guarantee of a strong Weyrleader. A Weyrleader who, I'm sure, would be wise enough to know what to change and what to leave be."

"You mean like the favours that let Council bronze riders get fat while everyone else suffers?"

"Don't make your decision yet, T'kamen," the Flightleader said, ignoring T'kamen's fury. "Think it over – discuss it with your friends. You'll see the sense of it."

H'ersto's brightly condescending tone made T'kamen see red, but then Epherineth's touch on his mind cooled him. T'kamen took a firm hold of himself as he listened to his dragon's calm suggestion.

"Well?" H'ersto asked.

T'kamen took a deep breath. "What do you think, Epherineth?"

H'ersto's expression registered disbelief at first, as Epherineth lowered his great head to stare at him. But T'kamen guessed that seeing oneself reflected back a hundred times in the crimson-laced eyes of an angry bronze dragon was enough to frighten even another dragonrider, and that getting a good view of that dragon's teeth was similarly distressing. Slowly and very deliberately, he said, "Get off our ledge, Flightleader, before I throw you off."

The bugle of alarm that could only have come from Alonth sounded thin and shrill compared to the deepest and softest of menacing growls that rumbled from Epherineth's throat.

T'kamen placed his hand meaningfully on his dragon's jaw, close to those gleaming teeth, as Alonth descended from the Rim to collect his shaken and intimidated rider. Sweating more profusely than ever, H'ersto scrambled aboard his bronze, and only then summoned the courage for a retort. "You'll never beat Pierdeth without me, bronze rider!"

"Watch us."

T'kamen stood vigil with his bronze until Alonth had gone, dropping to the low-level weyr that belonged to H'ersto, and Epherineth had relaxed. Then he leaned more heavily against his dragon: half incredulous that the incident had occurred, half weak with revulsion at the bargain his former Flightleader had tried to strike. The sun beat down as harshly as ever, but T'kamen felt chilled to the bone.

Finally, Epherineth spoke. _The suggestion that I would need the help of one such as Alonth to win my queen!_

T'kamen smiled at his dragon's offended outrage. _I know, my friend. You never could handle insults._

 _Insults. Absurdities._ The bronze shook himself all over, and flexed his talons into the stone of the ledge. _Indioth says you're late,_ he added, more peaceably.

T'kamen straightened up decisively. _Tell her we're coming. C'los will want to hear about this._

* * *

Sarenya smoothed down the seam she was mending on one of her heavy wherhide tunics, then continued to sew, running the thread through the fine holes already punched in the leather. The stitching seemed to unravel the moment she turned her back on it: the garment had been weathered and cracked by wind, rain, dirt, and was probably due for complete replacement, but she was loath to spend her marks on a new one.

So she sat quietly, making repairs and listening while the riders discussed the latest twist in their plans to influence the Weyrleadership.

"It was inevitable that someone would get scared and come running to you sooner or later, Kamen," C'los was saying.

"And it doesn't surprise me that it was H'ersto," said R'hren. "Treacherous little tail-fork. He always did like to keep a foot in each camp."

"Then why did you keep him on as Flightleader when you were Weyrleader?" asked T'kamen.

R'hren sighed heavily. "You have to remember, T'kamen, that on the occasions when I was Weyrleader, the main thing on my mind was _staying_ Weyrleader." The old rider grimaced. "I never did, but that didn't stop me trying. H'ersto wasn't a threat. Even if he'd had the ambition to lead the Weyr, Alonth never had the class to take on a queen. So it seemed wiser to leave H'ersto in a ranking position than to replace him with a bronze rider who was a bigger danger."

"Flightleader's an even more decorative title than Wingleader," L'stev muttered.

R'hren nodded reluctantly. "It means very little these days."

"Take it as an encouraging sign, Kamen," C'los advised the bronze rider. "If H'ersto was willing to defect, others must be thinking about it."

"I was more concerned about how far some Council riders would be willing to go to affect Shimpath's flight," said T'kamen.

"He has a point," commented V'rai. "L'dro would rig it against Epherineth if he thought he could."

"But could he?" asked T'rello. "I mean, I don't know from my own experience, but _could_ Alonth have interfered with Pierdeth once they were all airborne?"

"Mid-air tussles do happen," said R'hren. "Bronzes will lash out if another gets too close, or if they're obstructed. But could H'ersto could actually make Alonth do that deliberately?" He shook his head. "I don't know. Queen flights are very intense. Neither bronze nor rider is thinking about anything besides winning."

"You said that Alonth isn't good enough to have a serious shot at a queen," said Jenavally. "If H'ersto knew he didn't have a chance himself, could he hold back from the need to win, and settle for influencing the outcome instead?"

"I suppose so," R'hren said doubtfully. "A rider could make his beast more reckless, more likely to collide with another."

"In that case, Epherineth could face half a dozen bronzes with the intention of blocking him," said C'los. "D'feng and Sejanth don't have a serious chance, and D'feng doesn't want to be Weyrleader himself."

"It would be very easy to make it seem accidental with twenty dragons in the air," L'stev added. "No one remembers much of what happens in a flight, anyway."

"And Pierdeth doesn't need long to win Shimpath," said Jenavally. "The other bronzes would only need to delay Epherineth long enough for Pierdeth to catch her up."

The discussion made Sarenya frown as she bit off a thread and pulled experimentally at the seam she had just sewn. "I thought mating flights were more straightforward than this," she commented quietly to C'mine.

"They are, for the dragons. It's people who make them complicated," the blue rider replied softly. He smiled. "Do your fire-lizards chase much?"

"The blue probably does, but he leads quite a separate life from me," said Sarenya. "Tarnish caught queens at Blue Shale once or twice. I haven't seen any here, though."

"There aren't many at Madellon," C'mine told her. "Too far inland, and most riders have enough to keep them busy."

"Evidently," Sarenya said dryly, indicating the debate with a flick of her eyes.

"We need a new Weyrleader," said C'mine. "Can you think of anyone better than Kamen?"

Sarenya looked at the bronze rider. Beside him, C'los was talking rapidly, with characteristically exaggerated gestures, but no one could have mistaken him for the real force in the room. T'kamen was still and focused, listening, his eyes intent, his demeanour one of contained readiness: he almost seemed to radiate leadership. He would probably never be a beloved leader, but he would always command respect, and lead well and wisely. Sarenya had known T'kamen seven Turns ago, and she knew him still: this was a man who had been born to make decisions.

But the longer she listened to the discussion, the more aware she became of her exclusion from it. It wasn't that the dragonriders were deliberately ignoring her – she simply had nothing to contribute. C'mine had sought her out and specifically invited her to come to the meeting, and Sarenya was grateful to the blue rider for thinking of her, but her presence was completely superfluous to the business at hand.

The only other non-rider present was Chuvone, and even he had once ridden a blue. Sarenya didn't know the full story of how the man had lost his dragon, but there was something unsettling about him. "C'mine?"

The blue rider looked at her inquiringly.

"What happened to Chuvone's dragon?"

C'mine glanced at the dragonless man, and a deep sadness touched his eyes. "His dragon misjudged a turn in training manoeuvres and hit the wall of the Bowl. Ch'vone got away with some minor injuries, but Gommeshath died on the ground."

"Why did it happen?"

The blue rider shook his head. "He was the youngest weyrling… T'kamen thinks it was his own fault. Gommeshath was the most agile of the blues in our class, and maybe Ch'vone needed to prove he was as good as any of the older riders. Or maybe L'dro was taunting him; I don't know. What I do know is that he didn't deserve to lose his dragon. No one deserves that."

Sarenya considered for a moment. "Do you think he would rather not have Impressed?"

C'mine's expression turned briefly distant, as if he was talking to his own dragon to reassure himself. "I can't say, Saren," he said finally. "Not even for myself. To lose Darshanth…" He shook his head. "I don't even want to think about it. But to never have known him at all…I don't know. I suppose it would be like choosing between being blind from birth, or losing your sight during adulthood. Is it better to lose what you once had, or to never have it in the first place?"

"I think it would be better to have gone blind later," Sarenya said slowly. "At least then you could imagine what everyone else is seeing."

The blue rider looked at her with such understanding and sympathy in his eyes that for a moment Sarenya was confused. What had she said…? But then she knew, and the fact that C'mine had perceived it first spoke of the blue rider's sensitivity. He knew how hard it was for her to be among dragonriders; almost, perhaps, as hard as it must be for Chuvone. Chuvone, at least, had seen the rainbows that Sarenya never would.

"I know I'd rather lose my sight than my dragon," C'mine said finally. "Not that I'd like to go blind." Then the blue rider smiled, and nodded towards his weyrmate. C'los was wearing a garish purple and black shirt. "Not unless he makes a habit of wearing that thing, anyway, and then it might just be out of my hands…"


	10. Chapter Nine

Across Madellon territory, the last day of the Turn dawned alternately dry or humid, but uniformly hot.

At the Weyr, the bustle of activity that usually preceded the Turn's End celebrations had been reduced to a sluggish crawl. The youngsters sent out to pick the best produce from the kitchen gardens sweltered in the heat, and the limp greens and wilted leaves of the roots they brought back paid testament to the arid weather. The grass in the stock pens had been scorched into straw, and exhausted beasts stood or leaned by the fences, drained even of the energy to fear the few dragons picking off meals.

Another group of youngsters trudged wearily back and forth from the lake to the kitchens with buckets. The stream that had long been dammed to run past the entrance to the kitchens had dried up. The level of the lake had dropped to a such an extent that even the oldest riders could not remember ever having seen it so low, and most dragons were opting to bathe out-Weyr rather than swim in the increasingly scant water.

Up by the Star Stones, T'kamen had taken refuge from the sun under Epherineth's slightly open wing. Being put on watch on Turn's End normally constituted punishment, which was why T'kamen hadn't been surprised to see his name on the roster. He had accepted his lot with equanimity, although some of his supporters had thrown savage looks at L'dro in the dining hall at breakfast.

Epherineth called a friendly greeting to the blue dragon who had just taken off from the Bowl and was flying up towards the watch post. T'kamen squinted against the sun to identify Darshanth, and signalled the blue permission to land beside his bronze.

Darshanth alighted, neatly folding his wings, and touched noses with Epherineth as his rider dismounted. C'mine ducked under Epherineth's wing, sighing in visible relief at the shade. "Morning, Kamen."

"Mine," T'kamen replied. "What are you doing up here?"

C'mine smiled sheepishly. "C'los is throwing things, and I don't duck very well."

T'kamen looked down at the ledge shared by Darshanth and Indioth. C'los' green was preening and posturing by turns, and her hide glowed fiercely. "That counts you out of the Turn's End celebration, too."

"One way or another," C'mine agreed. "Even if Darshanth doesn't catch her, I won't be showing up."

T'kamen looked at his friend's dragon. Darshanth was much smaller than Epherineth, but the blue was gleaming with good health, and the bright sun emphasised the almost silvery highlights of his fine colour. "Good chasing, Darshanth."

The blue rumbled pleasantly in response. "He says thank you," said C'mine.

The two riders stood in companionable silence for a few moments under the shade of Epherineth's obligingly spread wing. Then T'kamen noticed how C'mine was regarding his weyrmate's green. "Something the matter?"

C'mine's slight frown vanished. "No, it's nothing."

T'kamen folded his arms. For all that C'mine willingly took responsibility for his friends' worries, the blue rider was notoriously cagey about his own. "It must be something, Mine, or you wouldn't have that look on your face."

The blue rider frowned again, as if in thought. Then he asked, "Do you think C'los has…changed at all?"

"Changed?"

"Forget it," the blue rider said hastily.

"No, Mine, it's all right. How do you mean, 'changed'?"

C'mine's frown deepened. "Since we've been helping you build up to being Weyrleader. He just seems to have become more…I don't know…cold. No, that's not right." The blue rider fumbled for words. "Ruthless, maybe? Unscrupulous?" C'mine's expression grew troubled. "That's it. Unscrupulous."

"In what way?" T'kamen asked, concerned. If C'los was acting in a way that disturbed his weyrmate, something was certainly wrong.

"You remember that discussion we all had, when H'ersto offered to interfere with Shimpath's flight?" At T'kamen's nod, C'mine went on. "All that night, Los was trying to think of a way to turn that to our advantage. He asked me if I thought R'hren and T'rello might get their bronzes to do something similar to what H'ersto suggested."

"He couldn't have been serious," T'kamen objected.

C'mine shook his head. "I don't know. I said straight away that it wasn't right. He seemed to agree, but I know he kept thinking about it anyway."

"You know what he's like when he gets an idea in his head, Mine," said T'kamen. "He doesn't let it up until he's explored all the possibilities. It doesn't mean he'd actually try it."

"It's not just that," said C'mine. "He talks about Valonna as if she's just a piece to be taken in a game of chess. He doesn't think of her as a person – just as a weakness to be exploited. Kamen, I know she isn't the Weyrwoman we would have liked to have seen Impress Shimpath, but that doesn't give us the right to take advantage of her the way L'dro has."

"Other than you, the rest of us have barely spoken to Valonna," T'kamen said gently. It wasn't a rebuke, not exactly, but the scheme to work him into the Weyrwoman's good graces had never really happened.

C'mine wasn't dumb to the mild criticism. "Kamen, after the challenge it was difficult enough to convince her that I wasn't just using her the way C'los wanted to, let alone getting her to warm to the idea of you."

"All right, Mine. You don't have to justify it to me."

"But I do have to justify it to C'los," the blue rider said doggedly. "And that's what bothers me. He's so caught up in the game, he's forgotten that the pieces he's playing with are real people."

"I don't like it much either," said T'kamen. "Massaging egos and making alliances with people I can barely stand – the riders who seem to think it's clever or daring to salute me in the dining hall – always having to take care of what I say in case some of the more zealous ones pick up on it… I'm a dragonrider, C'mine, not a politician. But I think Los is right. If popular support counts for anything in a mating flight, I won't have a chance without him."

"I suppose so," C'mine said reluctantly.

"It won't be for much longer, anyway," said T'kamen. "And when Indioth rises she'll take both your minds off politics for a while."

Another dragon appeared from _between_ above them. Epherineth raised his head and uttered a short querying bark. The brown bugled a response, and Epherineth shifted aside for the pair to land beside him. _Sweeprider._

T'kamen ducked underneath his dragon's neck to greet the brown rider. Part of the watchpair's job was to take reports from the day's sweepriders, and pass pertinent information on to any departing dragons. "What have you got, R'han?"

The young rider scrambled down from his dragon, pulling his riding jacket open and fanning himself in the heat. "We swept north over Kellad. Skies are clear as far as the southern border, but there's a storm front gathering north of there, and Bostrath says the air feels very thick."

"Wind conditions?"

"Not much high up, but it's hot and gusty on the ground." The young brown rider made a face, scratching his sweaty hair. "About time for a good rainstorm, I think. I envy them!"

"Not rain," C'mine said quietly, from behind T'kamen. "Thunder. You've just described all the warning signs of a Kellad summer thunderstorm."

R'han looked puzzled. "Won't it rain too?"

"For about ten minutes," C'mine agreed. "Then it'll stop, and the heat will turn it all to steam. The ground's so hard now it won't even soak in. Kellad gets them a lot at this time of Turn. Don't worry about it. The holders there are used to them."

"Oh." The brown rider looked at T'kamen. "Can I go now? It's hot up here."

T'kamen nodded his assent, and R'han climbed back aboard his brown. "I was never there in the summer," T'kamen commented defensively.

"You weren't missing much," C'mine assured him. "I should get on. I was going to go find out if Saren knows where people have been going to hunt. Darshanth's going to be hungry after Indioth rises, and he says the Weyr beasts stick in his teeth."

T'kamen smiled briefly, and not only at the blue's fussiness. "Give her my best."

"Always, Kamen." C'mine hesitated, as if he was going to add something else, then shook his head. "See you later."

"Later, Mine." T'kamen knew the blue rider was holding something back regarding Sarenya. But as he watched Darshanth launch off the heights and glide down towards the stock pens, he realised that he didn't mind at all.

* * *

L'dro stripped the last shreds of flesh off the bone he had been gnawing and tossed the wreckage away. As a drudge appeared at his elbow to take away the remains of his lunch, the Weyrleader wiped his greasy fingers on the tablecloth and sighed contentedly. As a child, he'd hated the way that supplementary meals were always skimped on a feast day. Since becoming Weyrleader he had made it clear that he would expect to eat as heartily as ever at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, no matter the occasion. His only concession to informality was that he ate in the kitchen while drudges and serving women laid out the dining hall for the evening's celebrations.

He was looking forward to the new Turn. Other than the constant thorn in his side that was T'kamen, the Weyrleader felt he had much to celebrate. Tomorrow, the ninety-ninth Turn of the Interval would begin, and he, L'dro, would see the new Turn in as Weyrleader for the fifth time, equalling the record set by his father L'mis. It had been more than thirty Turns since a Weyrleader had remained so for longer.

The thought made L'dro sneer, despite his good mood. That old bitch Fianine had seen to it that no one bronze rider could consolidate his position as Weyrleader. She had used L'mis, letting Pelranth fly her queen when it suited her own ends, and then influencing Cherganth against the bronze when she tired of his rider. L'mis' plans for the Weyr had never come to fruition through the old Weyrwoman's meddling.

L'dro had been thirteen when his father had first become Weyrleader. The pride he'd felt for L'mis' achievement had been crowned by the prospect of Impressing a dragon of Pelranth's parentage. For the Weyrleader's only son to Impress a bronze, first time, would have been a glorious portent for L'mis' career as Weyrleader.

It was not to be. The boy Leddrome had stood on the hot sands, confident, expectant, as one by one dragonets escaped their shells. He had watched, tolerantly at first, as other boys and girls Impressed blues and greens, safe in the knowledge that only a bronze would choose him. He had stepped forward proudly when the first bronze had broken free, only to see it rush to another boy. He had felt first disbelief and then anger as two more bronzes passed him over, one in favour of Franton, the ridiculous slow-witted candidate he had taken so much pleasure in teasing. Unable to comprehend the hatchlings' decisions, Leddrome had closed in around the final egg with the other remaining candidates, convinced that his dragon must be inside. It was a large egg, quite large enough to hold a good sized bronze. As it had rocked and cracked, Leddrome had willed its occupant to be free, turning all his mental power on welcoming the last dragonet, the one that had to be his.

The hatchling that had finally burst free of the egg was blue. Frozen in shock and disappointment, Leddrome had watched dumbly as two other boys helped the little creature to its feet. The blue dragonet had taken a single step towards him, his sorrowful creeling momentarily hopeful. Leddrome had looked at the crying hatchling, so very different to the proud, strong bronze dragonet he had envisaged, and known that it was not for him. The Weyrleader's son would never accept a lesser dragon.

L'dro remembered vividly how clear his mind had been at that moment, as he had stepped away from the blue dragonet. He had decided then that he would never settle for second best – a comprehension of his own mind almost akin to an epiphany. The uncompromising stance had stayed with him ever since.

He never regretted rejecting the blue. It had died little more than a Turn later anyway, lost _between_ in weyrling training along with the boy who had Impressed it. But his failure to Impress from Pelranth's first clutch had doomed his father as Weyrleader. Five Turns later, when Cherganth rose to mate again, a different bronze won her. Leddrome maintained his confident façade on the sands, but inside he was a morass of doubts: guilt for standing to a clutch not sired by his father's bronze, worry that he would fail again, fear that this would be the last time he had a chance. Much of his confidence had come from taunting the weaker candidates. By making them feel unworthy of dragons – or, at least, of the bronzes Leddrome claimed as his own – surely he would improve his own chances.

He had targeted three other boys with particular scorn: Taskamen, Cairmine, and Carellos. The latter two had made friends easily amongst the candidates, threatening to undermine Leddrome's authority, so he had approached the trader lad, Taskamen, in search of an ally. Even then, Carellos and Cairmine had been on the edge of the kind of relationship most Holdbred types would revile, and Leddrome had tried to use it to turn Taskamen against his friends. The tactic had backfired dramatically. Under the gaudy clothes and sashes and bandannas and earrings that made up the trader's apparel, there was a quick and savage temper, and an abiding loyal to his friends. The fight resulting from Leddrome's attempt to win Taskamen over had almost seen them both barred from the sands.

The battle lines were thus drawn for the remainder of their candidacy. Taskamen had been easily provoked, but his two friends had been adept at talking him out of retaliation, so Leddrome's forays against him were seldom reciprocated, and word of the pranks never got back to the Weyrlingmaster. On several occasions Leddrome had thought he might finally have pushed Taskamen into giving up his candidacy and leaving the Weyr for good, but the trader lad had apparently inexhaustible reserves of determination.

By the time of the Hatching, their rivalry had become a bitter feud, with half the candidates siding with Taskamen and the rest with Leddrome. The sniping had continued even on the way to the Hatching Ground. But once the ceremony had begun, Leddrome had been forced once again to watch boys he hated Impress before him.

Cairmine had been chosen first, claimed by a blue with more self-possession than befitted the colour. A green, Hatched too late to choose from amongst the four female candidates, had gone to Carellos. Both Impressions had galled Leddrome, but with the pair attaching lesser colours he could at least disdain them. But when the egg to which Taskamen had been drawn from the start of the Hatching had spilled its inhabitant onto the sand, and the sleek bronze dragonet had looked straight into the trader boy's eyes and cried out for joy at finding him, the bitterness and jealousy twisting in Leddrome's guts had almost overwhelmed him.

Too sick with anger and envy to hear the cries and cheers, Leddrome had simply stared blankly at the remaining eggs, his confidence in tatters. All around him, newly linked pairs had been experiencing their first magical moments together, and the six or eight remaining candidates had gathered closer to the handful of un-Impressed dragonets, but Leddrome had only been able to stare at Taskamen and his bronze, with tears of resentment running down his cheeks.

Pierdeth had found him, then. The hatchling, ungainly but muscular from the moment of Hatching, had been wandering, inspecting each of the candidates that were left. A tentative push at his mind had startled Leddrome into focusing on the tear-blurred shape before him, and as he had taken in the sight of the powerful bronze dragonet of his dreams, the push had exploded into the presence and consciousness of the hatchling Pierdeth.

A smile crossed L'dro's face at the memory. Impressing Pierdeth had marked his second epiphany, confirming the first and banishing all uncertainty. And so it had been since. He personally had prevented the possibility of another Weyrwoman like Fianine by Searching Valonna. He had courted her, using every last shred of her awe and gratitude to him to gain her trust and love. He and Pierdeth had won her, snatching the young Shimpath quickly in flight before even half a dozen bronzes had failed, seizing power for himself. He had used that power as both armour and weapon, making an example of T'kamen to inspire the other bronze riders with fear, and courting them as he had Valonna, with power and luxury. Bronze riders had never been so well-off at Madellon Weyr, and it was all down to L'dro. Never mind what the lower echelons thought: in decisive flight, only queen and bronzes counted. The queen's rider was his: she had responded with pathetic gratitude to his renewed attention. Expensive gifts and exaggerated solicitude cost no more than Weyr marks and a finite amount of time: once Pierdeth had caught Shimpath again and consolidated L'dro's position, he would be free to pursue his own diversions again. The riders of the Council knew to a man that they were best off under L'dro as Weyrleader.

T'kamen was the only threat. L'dro had once tried to transfer him forcibly out of the Weyr, but it hadn't worked out. Besides, D'feng had convinced him that to remove T'kamen altogether would suggest L'dro was afraid of him: better to keep him near and best him at every turn. There were ways to hamper a dragon in a mating flight, but with the queen's rider utterly devoted to L'dro, such measures shouldn't be necessary. T'kamen had never gained any standing with Valonna. Indeed: D'feng's sly plan to distract the other bronze rider by bringing back the failed candidate T'kamen had presented for Shimpath appeared to have worked, if their informant in the inner circle was to be believed. Other than the endorsement of a rabble of wingriders, and two bronze riders respectively too old and too young to make a difference, T'kamen had nothing. Maybe he'd even leave in shame when he lost to Pierdeth again.

L'dro leaned back in his chair, his smile broadening. Oh yes: he was _definitely_ looking forward to the new Turn.

* * *

The afternoon dragged on: hot, airless, suffocating. Up by the Star Stones, T'kamen could only just keep himself from drowsing. L'stev had been up twice with cold drinks and a scathing appraisal of the celebrations already going on under cool canvas shade at the far end of the Bowl. Both pitchers were empty now, and T'kamen was considering whether to get Epherineth to ask Vanzanth to bring some more when the bronze alerted him to something.

_There. Little ones._

T'kamen strained his eyes in the direction Epherineth indicated, then laid a hand on his bronze's smooth hide and let himself see use the dragon's sight. Three fire-lizards, young ones by the size, flew in a tight cluster, but their indecisive dips and swoops suggested that something was wrong. _Can you tell them to come over here?_

Epherineth expressed his doubt silently. _They're very young and have never seen a dragon. They would respond better to one of their own._

_Who at Madellon has fire-lizards?_ Then, T'kamen spoke and Epherineth responded at the same moment. _Sarenya._

_I'll get her._

T'kamen stepped back, unsure whether to be amused or annoyed by his dragon's initiative as Epherineth launched himself off the Rim. He winced as the blistering sun hammered down on him, and hastily retreated into the shadow of the Star Stones.

_Sorry._

T'kamen watched his bronze glide across the Bowl, bright sunlight flashing off his sleek back. He noticed that Indioth was still on her ledge. C'los' green was really working herself up into a frenzy. There was going to be a very loud mating flight before the end of the day.

Epherineth returned with Sarenya astride, quickly enough to make T'kamen wonder. He pointedly expressed his suspicion at the bronze as he reached up to help Sarenya dismount. "Did he tell you what we need you for?"

The journeyman touched his hand but lightly as she slid down. "Something about fire-lizards." She motioned to the bronze fire-lizard on her shoulder. "He'll get on it."

Epherineth was watching Sarenya with brilliant blue eyes. "Would some shade be too much trouble?" T'kamen asked his dragon dryly.

The bronze extended a wing without a word, although he threw his rider a disapproving glance.

Sarenya's lizard had taken flight from her shoulder. T'kamen borrowed Epherineth's long sight again and watched as Tarnish approached the three visitors. The young lizards veered towards Sarenya's mature bronze as if in relief.

"They're very young," said Sarenya, critically.

T'kamen looked at the journeyman, seeing the concentration in her eyes as she tried to make sense of the situation. "Any idea where they're from?"

"We'll soon find out. Come on, Tarnish, bring them over here." She said the last under her breath, like a new weyrling who had yet to grow fully accustomed to communicating silently.

Tarnish herded the cluster of lizards towards them, alternately reassuring them with soothing chirps and berating them for their reluctance with angry flutters of his wings. The green and two browns were clearly juveniles, but when a roll of hide dropped from their talons into Sarenya's hands it became clear that their owners were inexperienced, too.

"Shards, some people don't have the sense they were born with," said Sarenya, weighing the message in her hand before passing it to T'kamen. "These lizards are too young to be carrying messages, and it's no wonder it took three of them, with the weight of that thing!"

T'kamen inspected the outside of the hide, but it revealed nothing of its origin or intended recipient. "Thanks for your help, Saren," he said as he unrolled the message. "Epherineth will take you down again in a moment."

Sarenya nodded. "When do you get off watch? I guess it was inevitable that L'dro would put you on duty for Turn's End."

"Not until tonight…" T'kamen trailed off as he absorbed the import of the words that had been hastily penned on the piece of hide.

"What is it, Kamen? What does it say?"

He made himself go back and read the words again. "It's from Meturvian at Kellad Hold."

"No wonder those fire-lizards were so timid," said Sarenya. "They must have hatched from the eggs we delivered a month ago."

T'kamen took a deep breath. "There's a fire in the forest."

For a moment they both stood there, absorbing the possible consequences of such a disaster, not only to the precious timber lots, but to the people who worked them. The long, hot summer had leeched the Kellad area of moisture. A big fire could blaze for months. The loving husbandry of five generations of Kellad holders could be wiped out in a single season.

He scarcely hesitated an instant before acting. "I don't know how L'dro will take this, but he can't ignore it." He vaulted to Epherineth's neck ridges, putting a hand down to assist Sarenya. "Epherineth, make some noise."

For once, the bronze didn't grudge the uncharacteristic necessity. As he extended his wings to take off he called out to the Weyr with unmistakeable notes of urgency and alarm in his voice, and T'kamen heard his broadcast to every other dragon. _We are needed!_

T'kamen looked down at the tents and awnings that had been erected in the Bowl, seeing the confusion of riders and Weyrfolk. _Land as close as you can._ Then he turned to address Sarenya, shouting over the clamour of wings. "You'd better hang on."

The wind of Epherineth's wings made the canvas pavilions flap wildly, straining against their tethers. The bronze landed hard, absorbing most of the impact with his powerful hind legs, without his normal grace.

The other dragons of Madellon had responded to Epherineth's cry, trumpeting alarm. Even Pierdeth had bugled a query. Riders and Weyrfolk crowded around Epherineth, demanding to know what was happening.

"Urgent message from Kellad Hold," T'kamen shouted above the din. He held the missive high in his fist. "It goes to the Weyrleader."

"What does it say?" someone in the crowd demanded.

"Let him dismount!"

T'kamen clenched his teeth against the irritation, and slid down from Epherineth's neck. "Clear some space, this needs to get to L'dro."

"Make way!"

Amazingly, the shout was D'feng's. The press of bodies eased as the tall Flightleader waded into the crowd. T'kamen nodded curtly to the man, wary, but grateful for his intervention. "L'dro needs to see this."

D'feng nodded, equally wary. "Come this way."

T'kamen followed the other bronze rider with Sarenya beside him. The mob of riders – most of the Weyr, now – trailed at a slightly more respectful distance: good, T'kamen thought. He wanted to see how L'dro would deal with this.

The Weyrleader was already on his way, with a face like a thundercloud. "Who in Faranth's name do you think you are?"

T'kamen stared impassively at L'dro for a moment before holding out the message. "I think I'm the watchrider."

"What is this?" L'dro snatched the hide away and narrowed his eyes to focus on it.

"Lord Meturvian of Kellad Hold urgently requests the Weyr's assistance," T'kamen said, for everyone else to hear, quoting the brief message as he remembered it. "A fire is sweeping through the eastern forests of the Hold and endangering the lives of Kellad holders."

"Endangering his timber industry, more like!" L'dro scoffed, throwing the message back at T'kamen. "It's Turn's End, no one's going to be in the forest today. Let it burn."

D'feng cleared his throat discreetly. "Weyrleader, communities made up of woodcutters and their families have sprung up in the deep forests in recent Turns. Their holds are built of timber: they would most certainly be at risk."

L'dro's anger at being disturbed from his day of revelry combined with the embarrassment of having his ignorance shown up publicly. Crimson-faced, he spat, "The Weyr doesn't protect fools who shelter in wood! If Thread was falling…"

"Thread isn't falling," T'kamen interrupted.

The Weyrleader glared at him with such an intensity of hatred that T'kamen felt his own spine go rigid. "Idiocy!"

"You'd let them burn, then, Weyrleader?"

The disapproving mutters from the crowd, and the looks being thrown at L'dro, almost made T'kamen pity the Weyrleader. He had no concept whatsoever of how to handle a crowd in a crisis. Without D'feng's meticulous hard work, L'dro would be nothing.

"Fine!" L'dro snapped. "If you're so concerned about them, why don't _you_ go and help!"

"Yes sir," T'kamen replied, so immediately and so smoothly that his obedience was mocking. He turned to the crowd of riders, the necessary commands coming to him easily. "I need volunteers who can have their dragons ready to go in ten minutes. Healer training or knowledge of Kellad's forests would be an advantage, but I need a good spread of colours."

After an instant of stunned silence, a chorus of willing voices greeted T'kamen's request. He felt a sudden surge of pride, not only at their response to him, but at the eagerness of dragonriders to help the people of Pern. "All right!" he shouted above the racket. "L'stev, T'rello, you're seconds." He scanned the volunteers rapidly. "Ishane, I want you to take A'len, L'jando, and Jenavally to the infirmary for litters and first-aid supplies. T'sten, get _between_ to Kellad to tell them help is on the way."

Riders scattered to follow his orders, and those who remained looked hopefully at him. T'kamen rapidly named another ten blue and green riders: their smaller dragons would have less trouble moving in the forests, but he still only had two bronzes. Several Council riders had volunteered, but T'kamen didn't trust any of them. R'hren was just too old to risk in a perilous environment. It left him only one option. "Fr'ton."

The blond bronze rider looked startled.

"We're going to need you and Peteorth." T'kamen raised his voice as riders hurried away. "I want everyone in full wherhide and fighting harness, and back here in ten minutes."

T'kamen paused to draw breath, and only then noticed the expressions of those he hadn't chosen. There was regret on many faces, but also admiration. He turned to Sarenya. "I don't know what kind of casualties we might have, if any, but I want the healers and dragon-healers prepared, and everyone else ready with numbweed."

"Kamen. I'm coming too."

The voice belonged to C'mine, and it was full of resolve. T'kamen looked at the blue rider, realising that he had automatically counted his friend out of the rescue wing because of his weyrmate. "Mine, you don't have to. Stay and be with C'los."

C'mine shook his head; there was shielded anguish in his eyes, but his determination overrode it. "He'll understand. This is more important. I lived at Kellad for sixteen Turns, remember? I know how the fires spread."

T'kamen gripped his friend's shoulder. "C'mine, I would have you come more gladly than any other rider in the Weyr, but I know how much Indioth's flights mean to you and Los."

"I know. That's why I'm asking you: please don't leave me behind."

For a moment T'kamen didn't understand, but then he realised what C'mine meant. The blue rider had made a difficult decision in putting his duty as a dragonrider over his dedication to C'los. It wasn't T'kamen's place, as friend or leader, to belittle him by questioning that decision.

T'kamen thumped C'mine's shoulder. "Get Darshanth ready."

C'mine paused and then said softly, "Kamen, look at L'dro."

He turned. The Weyrleader stood with D'feng in the shade of one of the pavilions. The thin Flightleader was talking rapidly to him, but L'dro's gaze was fixed on T'kamen.

It might simply have been the shadow of the canvas, or the fact that T'kamen was standing in direct sunlight, but the Weyrleader's face seemed grey, and his eyes showed stark hatred and naked fear.


	11. Chapter Ten

Fifteen minutes after the first alarm had been raised, T'kamen's Wing was aloft.

He glanced back to see eighteen dragonpairs fall in behind Epherineth, taking their places in the close diamond pattern usually reserved for exhibition flying. Useless as a fighting formation, it nonetheless looked impressive, and the beleaguered Kellad holders would need something to inspire them. The three bronzes defined the three forward corners, with L'stev holding down the centre of the formation, A'len and his brown bringing up the rear, and the blues and greens filling in the gaps. Every dragon had supplies or a litter fastened securely to his harness, and every rider was clad in full fighting leathers. Under the relentless sun T'kamen knew they would all be sweating already, but the light made every dragon gleam with strength and health.

 _Does everyone know where_ _we're going?_ he asked Epherineth, as the last dragon slid into position.

_All have the visual._

_Take us to Kellad_.

Epherineth plunged them into darkness, and cold, and a silence so profound that T'kamen could hear his own heart racing.

They emerged high above Kellad Hold, into a sky already thick with smoke. Not a single dragon had broken formation, but T'kamen signalled to the Wing to drop beneath the pall of ash that was drifting sluggishly from the east.

 _Morrianth says much has burned already,_ Epherineth reported, as they descended into clearer air and sighted the solitary green dragon on the heights of Kellad.

T'kamen looked down at the people cramming the courtyard of the Hold, most of them dressed in their Turn's End finery, all of them staring skywards in awe at the mighty formation of dragons. He let them gaze in wonder for a moment, then issued curt orders through his bronze. _L'stev, sweep around to the north of the blaze. T'rello, take your riders south. I want to know how big this thing is and how many settlements are in danger. C'mine, with me. Everyone else: forward V, and stay airborne. You're on point, Fr'ton._

Dragons detached from the formation on both sides to join Vanzanth and Santinoth. Epherineth dropped away from the pattern with Darshanth beside him, and T'kamen glanced up to see the remaining dragons reform behind Peteorth. The dragonpairs couldn't have reacted more smoothly to the changes had they been drilled in them. T'kamen's heart clenched with such fierce pride in them that it hurt.

The courtyard cleared abruptly as the bronze and blue came in to land side by side. T'kamen released his straps and dismounted, signalling C'mine to do the same as the tall figure of Meturvian, Lord Kellad, came forward with T'sten at his side.

"Wingleader!" Meturvian greeted him, inaccurately but with tangible relief. "I didn't know if my message would get through."

"What happened?" T'kamen asked shortly.

The tall Lord, so arrogant the last time T'kamen had seen him, appeared genuinely scared as he outlined the situation. "About five hours ago a thunderstorm passed over the eastern forest, and a lightning strike set it alight."

"Why didn't you alert the Weyr before now?"

"Summer blazes aren't uncommon," said Meturvian. "Usually they're extinguished by the very storms that started them, but this was a dry storm, and the foresters who'd usually be detailed to keep watch were celebrating Turn's End, like everyone else."

T'kamen looked to T'sten. "How bad it is?"

The young rider looked uncharacteristically grim as he replied. "I didn't sweep properly, sir, but it's bad. The slopes face south, so the blaze is spreading uphill, fast. It keeps generating spot fires ahead of itself. There were at least two lodges at risk from the spread when Morrianth and I swept over, but I'd need a better look…"

T'kamen cut him off. "The sweepriders are already there, green rider." He fixed Meturvian with a piercing gaze. "How many foresters do you have here now?"

The Lord shook his head. "Several hundred, and most of them are out there now trying to establish a fireline, but they can't clear the trees fast enough to keep ahead."

"Dragons can," said C'mine. "With some of them soaking down the edges of the blaze from above, and others levelling trees, we might be able to get it under control."

As before, everything came together in T'kamen's mind at once. "First priority is the people," he said curtly. "We get them to safety, then we see about halting the spread. Meturvian, I'm going to need empty barrels for dragons to fill with water." He nodded southwards. "Get them ready in the Gather meadow; there's not the space here. Have your Healers on standby for casualties. I'll post a dragon here to relay. C'mine, T'sten, we need to get back up there and see what's going on." T'kamen nodded briefly to Meturvian and turned to remount Epherineth.

"Wingleader!"

T'kamen snapped the tethers on his belt to Epherineth's harness, glancing down at Meturvian. "What?"

The Lord glanced up at the hovering Wing. "Are these all you've brought?"

T'kamen wiped his flight goggles clean of the specks of ash already obscuring his vision. "I'll call more if we need them. Stand clear."

 _Santinoth says the fire is being blown north-west,_ Epherineth told his rider as he sprang aloft. _Vanzanth reports that the smoke is very dense ahead of the blaze; he's making a lower sweep._

T'kamen signalled C'mine and T'sten to flank Epherineth. _Tell V'gyat and Egrath to take watch here, and get a visual from Vanzanth._

_I have. We go._

They came out of _between_ into a thick cloud of grey smoke, and T'kamen started to cough as he inhaled a lungful of resinous ash. _Sear it! Tell the others not to breathe this stuff in, Epherineth! And hold your breath!_

Epherineth veered sharply away from the plume of smoke. _I am. Vanzanth's rider says to breathe through damp cloth._

T'kamen felt in the inside pocket of his jacket for the flying scarf he occasionally wore on cold sweeps. It was made of thin cotton, light enough to breathe through. He unstoppered the water skin strapped onto Epherineth's harness and wetted the cloth before tying it over his nose and mouth.

Only then did he look down at the ground. Even through the heavy pall of ash, the devastation being wrought by the flames was clear. The fire had cut a terrible swathe through the rich coniferous forest. As far as T'kamen could see, trees were burning like enormous torches, their flaming crowns spitting sparks into the air and igniting nearby snags and saplings. Even two hundred feet above the blaze T'kamen could feel waves of intense heat rolling skywards from the burning wood, and Epherineth had to work hard against the abnormal thermals just to hold his position.

The hulking form of L'stev's Vanzanth appeared out of the thick smoke, his hide already dull with soot, and his eyes yellow-white with alarm beneath two sets of protective lids. Epherineth banked to follow the brown. _We go with Vanzanth to the fireline._

As the bronze followed Vanzanth, T'kamen glanced down to see the unmistakeable shells of three buildings at right angles to each other, burnt to blackened timbers, still smouldering. _Faranth's shards, Epherineth!_

_Vanzanth says the people escaped before the fire reached them._

T'kamen was relieved, but the sight of those burned-out skeletons had filled him with momentary panic. What would he have done if there had been people still alive in there? What _could_ he have done?

The heat from below decreased suddenly, and the smoke thinned. Epherineth followed as Vanzanth dropped lower, beneath the veil of ash, and then T'kamen saw the leading edge of the fire. It seemed to stretch for miles, and as far as he could see, a line of men toiled to hold back the flames, but as fast as they felled trees to break the fire, sparks leapt ahead of the main blaze to ignite them. Levelled trunks rolled downhill into the blaze, feeding the awful inferno. T'kamen counted four spot fires ahead of the leading edge, each surrounded by a ring of men working in vain to contain it. As he watched, embers exploded from a pile of burning material and set a worker alight. Men either side of him instantly turned from the main blaze to help him, but even as they brought the afflicted forester to the ground, to smother the flames in his clothes and hair, T'kamen could hear him screaming.

_I can't land, T'kamen!_

The anguish in Epherineth's voice broke T'kamen out of his horrified fascination. He glanced down at the ground: there were clearings, but none large enough for a full-sized brown or bronze dragon. He made a snap decision. _Epherineth, tell C'mine that he's in charge here. Darshanth will be able to land. Call in Santinoth's detail and the rest of the Wing. Get all the blues and greens working on this firebreak, browns and bronzes with us. Find out from Vanzanth what settlements need evacuating._

 _Darshanth understands._ Then the urgency of Epherineth's tone increased. _Vanzanth says a hold has been surrounded by flames. Men are trying to help but there aren't enough. We have to go!_

T'kamen's desire to help was as urgent as his dragon's, but he stayed long enough to see twelve more dragons come out of _between_. He signalled good luck to C'mine, then concentrated with his dragon on the reference passed along by Vanzanth. The stark image of a log-built hold ringed with flames was awful, but T'kamen put his horror aside and glanced back to check that there were two browns and two bronzes hovering in the ash-choked air behind him.

Then he took a deep breath through the scarf over his face, and gave the command to go _between._

* * *

Darshanth landed cautiously between the trees up the slope from the edge of the fire, taking care not to foul his wings on the branches, and turned his anxiously whirling gaze on his rider. _What should I do?_

C'mine dismounted to make a rapid assessment of the closest trees. Space was tight even for a dragon of Darshanth's size. _I think you'll have to clear some space. Send all but the four smallest greens back to the Hold for water._

"Dragonrider!"

"Thank Faranth!"

" _Dragonrider!_ "

A chorus of shouts went up all along the line, and foresters turned from their work to look. Others yelled at them to concentrate on the fire, and after a brief debate, one was sent to meet him.

The big man who slogged up the slope towards C'mine was black with soot, and his eyes, the only part of his face not covered by the kerchief protecting his mouth and nose, were red and bloodshot. He carried an axe as if it was weightless, but he looked exhausted. "Dragonrider," he said hoarsely. "Thank the Egg you're here."

"I've got fourteen dragons ready and willing, but no space for them to land." C'mine gestured to his own dragon, crouching uncomfortably between the trees. "With some space to work they can move trees much faster than your men."

As he spoke, Darshanth clasped his front paws around the base of a tree. The trunk was no more than six inches through, and as the blue applied his strength, its roots tore free of the soil. Darshanth hopped backwards as the thirty foot trunk fell heavily sideways, taking several smaller saplings with it.

"Faranth!" the forester swore, stepping back reflexively.

 _Good work, Darshanth, good job,_ C'mine praised his blue.

Darshanth raised his head, and C'mine heard him call to the smallest of the hovering greens. _Freanth, land beside me and help to knock over the trees._

C'mine glanced back down the slope at the men toiling to move the trunks they had felled with hand axes. "Once these dragons are all on the ground they can start hauling those logs away from the fireline." He called to the rider of the green who had just alighted delicately beside Darshanth. "Keva! Make sure these trunks can't roll down into the fire!" Then he looked at the forester. "Need another pair of hands?"

"You've fought wildfire before?" asked the Kellad holder.

C'mine gazed downhill at the blaze, feeling the smoke stinging his eyes, the heat making him sweat under his wherhides, the resin-sweet scent of burning conifers cloying in his nose even through the bandanna he had tied across his face. "This was home, once."

The forester nodded and led the way back down the slope, towards the fireline. "Name's Ogharn."

The name sent a jolt of recognition through the blue rider. He hadn't thought of him in Turns: even without the sweat and grime, C'mine wouldn't have remembered the face, but he had never forgotten the name. He had grown up with this man. Ogharn, the Hold steward's son, a tall and powerful boy who had once cornered Cairmine, attacked him, beaten him to the ground, laid into him with kicks until he could not move, spat on him, and left him there, curled up around his own agony, all for the crime of loving Carellos of the Harperhall. It had been a summer nearly as hot as this one – their last summer at Kellad, before that late autumn day when a dragon of Madellon Weyr had Searched Cairmine and Carellos and Taskamen, and freed them all from the prejudice and fears of the Hold.

There, in the burning forest of his home Hold, C'mine remembered Cairmine's pain, and couldn't bring himself to face it again.

"Darshanth's rider," he replied, and followed Ogharn to the edge of the inferno.

* * *

T'kamen and Epherineth brought their command out of _between_ into the smoke-thick air high above the lodge Vanzanth had visualised, and signalled the other dragons to stand by while they assessed the situation.

T'kamen shared the use of his dragon's long sight again. The scene refracted a hundred times in Epherineth's faceted eyes showed one of the sprawling Kellad lodges, built up against the side of a cliff, surrounded on all the other sides by burning trees. Men and women worked feverishly to keep the one narrow corridor of escape open, wielding burlap sacks in a desperate attempt to smother the spot fires and sparks that leapt ahead of the encroaching flames. The frightened faces of more women and children that showed at the upper windows of the lodge made T'kamen curse under his breath: what kind of fool took refuge in a wooden building when fire burned all around?

 _We have to get those people out,_ he told his riders, through Epherineth. He took a coil of rope from Epherineth's harness and started to knot a safety rig at one end.

The sweep of bronze wings past them almost yanked the rope out of T'kamen's hands. "What…?"

 _Peteorth, no!_ Epherineth bellowed.

Fr'ton's bronze checked his rapid descent towards the lodge, bugling uncertainly to Epherineth, but the damage was already done. The wind of the smaller bronze's great wings as he fought to hold position above the skeletons of blazing trees fanned the flames. The burning trunks of the trees directly beneath Peteorth glowed with a blinding new intensity, and the downdraft of the bronze's wingbeats was enough to topple one trunk, already little more than charcoal wrapped in fire, directly onto the lodge, and another across the slender escape route that the holders had been working so hard to keep clear.

Horrified by the fire that now licked hungrily along the eaves of the wooden hold, and by the other bronze rider's incredible stupidity at letting his dragon get so close, T'kamen roared, _Fr'ton, get away from there!_

Peteorth vanished abruptly _between_ , but T'kamen could spare neither the time nor the patience to see him reappear. Fr'ton's idiocy had made the situation much worse. As he tested the knots on the harness he had rigged, he forced himself to be calm. _Epherineth, what's your estimate of that cliff?_

_Sixty, seventy feet._

T'kamen nodded: his rope was long enough. _Tell Vanzanth to land on the edge. Chyilth and Santinoth too. We'll have to scale down and bring them up that way._

The four dragons alighted on the edge of the escarpment, where the trees were sparse. As T'kamen scrambled down from his bronze's neck to secure the end of his rope to one of the thick, stunted scrub bushes, he glanced out across the lower slopes of Kellad and felt sick. The fire stretched for miles, and smoke billowed on the hot winds that preceded it. Twenty dragons weren't going to make much difference.

L'stev came along the line from Vanzanth with his face protected by the bandanna he usually wore on his head and long ratty strands of greying dark hair whipping behind him. "I'll watch your rope, Kamen. A'len's looking after T'rello."

T'kamen nodded and ran the climbing rope through the rings on his riding belt. It had been a long time since he'd done any cliff work, but all Madellon weyrlings trained for emergency situations. "I swear I'll flay Fr'ton alive when we get back to the Weyr."

"He's up there now," said L'stev, jerking his head skywards.

T'kamen shook his head. "Put him on watch back at the Hold. V'gyat has more sense; send him to help C'mine. Epherineth, take up the slack here and be ready to pull back up when I tell you."

L'stev checked to see that the harness was secure, then clapped T'kamen on the shoulder. "Good luck."

T'kamen nodded, and eased backwards, off the edge of the cliff.

* * *

The excitement of the rescue mission had faded in the heat, and most of the Weyr had retreated back under cover, to escape the afternoon sun. It was as if all the energy had been sucked out of Weyrfolk and dragons alike, drained by the frenzy of activity surrounding the departure of T'kamen's Wing. Dragons slept or sunned: even Shimpath was sprawled fast asleep on her ledge. Up on the Rim, an irate Sejanth had replaced Epherineth on watch duty.

Sarenya had ordered her apprentices to strip out of their usual protective working clothes. The job of filling up the water troughs in each pen was hot and heavy enough work without them, and few beasts had the energy to be dangerous. She emptied her bucket into a trough and pushed back the strands of hair straggling free from her braid before starting back towards the lake.

A glowing blur of green arrowed across the Bowl, shattering the languid stillness, and Sarenya paused by the edge of the lake. Indioth screamed out a raucous challenge to the males of the Weyr, and suddenly half a dozen blues and browns were awake and alert and crouching around the green, ready to give chase.

The low-level agitation that Indioth had been broadcasting all day, obvious even to Sarenya's limited senses, turned suddenly into a powerful wash of lust/desire that briefly fogged her mind, and without any warning she was struck by an almost painful need to be with T'kamen.

Sarenya took a step back, reeling from the powerful effects of Indioth's mating lust. It was far from the first green flight she had ever witnessed, but the intensity of the broadcast staggered Sarenya. Perhaps it was because she knew the green's rider so well. Or perhaps it was because, having resented the memory of her time with T'kamen for so long, she was finally coming to cherish it instead.

"Poor Mine," she said aloud, trying in vain to take her mind off Epherineth's rider. She scanned the waiting males, recognising several: Kimdanth, Gresath, Ivorth, all dragons with riders friendly to C'los. She wondered if any of their riders coveted the green rider, with C'mine out of the running.

Indioth hurled herself aloft and was half the length of the Bowl away before the first of the males had even taken off. Sarenya smiled sadly to herself: whoever won would have a thankless task afterwards. For all their differences, C'los and C'mine were as close a partnership as Sarenya had ever known. She doubted that C'los would be gracious about C'mine's absence.

As the dragons vanished into the distance, and across the Bowl their riders staggered towards C'los' weyr, another blue appeared in the sky over the Star Stones. For a moment Sarenya thought it was Darshanth, but the dragon was slightly larger than C'mine's blue, and slightly paler in hue. Tarnish flitted to her shoulder, chirping curiously, and then provided an image of the Wing T'kamen had taken _between_ to Kellad.

The blue called out a query to Sejanth, but the bronze roared what could only have been a negative almost immediately. The smaller dragon backed off, his voice simultaneously apologetic and pleading, but Sejanth only bellowed with more force.

Sarenya watched, perplexed, as the blue warbled unhappily and then disappeared. She couldn't remember ever having seen discord of that nature between two dragons, nor a plaintive request so vehemently denied. Even judging Sejanth by D'feng's nature, Sarenya was surprised that the bronze had responded so angrily. L'dro's right-hand man didn't strike her as particularly belligerent.

She shrugged mentally and picked up her bucket again, wondering who would win Indioth's flight, and how much she could tease C'los about it afterwards, when C'mine was back.

* * *

T'kamen couldn't be sure if the intense heat on his back was coming from the sun above or the flames below or both, but as he hung from the side of the cliff in full riding leathers, he could feel it sweating all the strength from his body.

He made himself focus, using the solid reassurance of Epherineth's mind to steady himself through the pounding in his head and the slickness of his hands inside his gloves, and let the rope run through the rings on his belt another six feet or so. The cliff face was rough, punctuated by scrubby bushes that meant scaling down was not as easy as T'kamen had initially hoped. He braced himself against the coarse stone for a moment to snap off a branch that was tangling his rope, and spared a glance down at the flat roof of the lodge thirty feet below.

The fire had spread along one side of the building, licking hungrily along the debris-clogged gutters, but the logs themselves were slow to catch. The lodge was structurally sound, for now, but once the blaze got into the pitchy boards of the roof it would spread the length and breadth of the building in seconds. T'kamen didn't like to think how many people he and T'rello would need to get up the cliff to safety before the whole lodge went up in flames.

He looked up at the young rider, twenty feet across from him and ten feet higher, and called, "You all right, T'rello?"

"Yes sir," the other bronze rider called back. "A little hot."

T'kamen kicked at a protruding shrub just below him, breaking off the brittle limbs that would slow his progress. "It's going to get hotter before the end of it. Go steady, you're almost past the worst."

As he spoke, T'kamen felt the profile of the cliff curving inwards below him, and he let his rope out more rapidly. The overhang was slight, but as he descended the last few feet towards the roof of the lodge he recognised why it had been built here: the cliff afforded the wooden hold symbolic protection from the skies. T'kamen supposed that the fear of Thread was instinctive in even these forest-dwelling people.

The feel of boards under his feet was only momentarily reassuring. T'kamen unclipped himself from the rope and left it hanging. He pulled down his flying goggles to wipe away the sweat that was fogging them. _I'm down, Epherineth. Tell L'stev to be ready._

A flight of steps ran up to the roof from the ground below – mercifully, at the end furthest from the fire. T'kamen started down them, and then through the drifting smoke and ash he saw the people of the lodge, huddled together fearfully in the ever-shrinking clearing, surrounded by the encroaching flames. "Over here!"

The terrified holders turned their eyes upwards, and a look of disbelief mingled with relief and desperation spread through the group. "Dragonrider!" one of the men roared.

"Get your people up on the roof," T'kamen called down.

The dozen holders, mostly women and children, and only three men, swarmed up the steps towards the roof. T'kamen seized the arm of the man who had spoken as he hurried past. "Where are the rest? The men who were fighting the fire?"

The holder shook his head. "Escaped ahead of the fire, lost…I don't know, I don't care!" There was a note of hysteria in his voice. "You have to get us out of here!

The very idea of so many lives potentially lost staggered T'kamen, but when he heard T'rello's raised voice a more immediate problem became apparent. "Wait, you have to get back, you can't all go up at once!"

The frightened holders were crowding around the ropes, actually fighting amongst themselves to be the first up. One man pushed a woman aside in order to secure his control of the only escape route, and T'kamen's temper flared. "That's enough! Get away from there, or by Faranth I'll throw you to the fire myself!"

The pandemonium ceased momentarily. T'kamen strode in amongst the holders, yanking the rope he had climbed down out of the covetous grasp of the man who had seized it. "All right, young ones first, you and you." He pointed out a boy and a girl, neither more than ten Turns old, their eyes huge and terrified in their soot-smeared faces. "T'rello, rig the lad up." As he spoke T'kamen was already tightening the safety harness he had tied at the end of the rope around the girl with quick, sure movements. When he was satisfied he gripped the shaking child firmly by the shoulders. "Kiddo, you're going to be fine. My dragon will pull you up, but you have to keep yourself from knocking into the cliff. Can you do that?"

The girl nodded miserably, and T'kamen squeezed her shoulders. "Brave girl." _Epherineth, be careful, this first one's a child._

He watched with concern at first as the rope hauled the little girl up the cliff at a considerable speed, but the child proved tougher than she looked, pushing herself away from the rock face with hands and feet. T'kamen looked across to see how T'rello was doing, and was satisfied to see the other bronze rider reassuring the young lad he had secured to the rope. Clad in full riding gear, T'rello's youth was disguised: his behaviour was a credit to his dragon and his Weyr.

 _We have her,_ Epherineth reported from above, and a moment later the rope came snaking down the cliff again.

"You're next," T'kamen told one of the women, letting out the knots on the harness.

"What about me?" demanded the man who had been pushing women aside.

T'kamen spared him the shortest of scathing glances. "You're last."

* * *

"On three…one, two, _three!_ "

C'mine and Ogharn heaved the unconscious form of another fallen worker onto a litter, then signalled the two riders serving as stretcher-bearers to carry him away. C'mine paused to retie the bandanna around his face. _Tell B'frea and J'kel we need them back from the Hold the moment they've taken in those last two men, Darshanth: they're dropping faster than we can pull them out._

C'mine dragged a hand across his brow and winced at the ashy sweat that came away on his sleeve. Behind him, men fought to hold back the fire long enough for the dragons to clear the ground ahead. Ten blues and greens, ranging out in a line running parallel to the fire, worked tirelessly: felling trees, dragging away the trunks, and digging with incredible speed and power to clear the layer of flammable needles and leaf litter on the ground. Where they had been, a swathe of bare earth, dotted with occasional stumps, was all that remained: a firebreak that had already saved one dwelling from the blaze. Overhead, three more dragons hauled water from the river, putting out spot fires before they could burn out of hand and wetting down the combustible material that had yet to be cleared by the dragons on the ground. The last two dragons worked to airlift injured and exhausted men from the scene. There just weren't enough of them. C'mine had sent G'pellas and Derthauth back to the Weyr for reinforcements, but extra dragons had been denied.

C'mine stood still for a moment, concentrating exclusively on his link with Darshanth. His blue was not naturally a leader, no more so than C'mine himself was, but since T'kamen and Epherineth had put them in charge, both rider and dragon had been forced to adapt. Darshanth had risen magnificently to the occasion, directing and encouraging the others, and never flagging himself. The blue's normally bright hide had turned a ghastly shade of grey from the ash, but he seemed indefatigable. C'mine expressed all the pride and praise and gratitude he felt for his dragon without words, drawing on Darshanth's strength to supplement his own.

Ogharn strode out of the haze with a waterskin. "Here, blue rider."

C'mine accepted the flask gratefully and took a long drink. In the face of a common enemy his old enmity with the Kellad forester was forgotten. Whatever Ogharn's past offences, he had worked fearlessly and selflessly beside C'mine at the very edge of the blaze. They helped where they could, evacuating men who had succumbed to the heat and smoke, beating back the flames, offering encouragement to foresters fearing for their lives and homes. The broader issue of what the fire would do to Kellad's economy could not have been further from C'mine's mind: the blue rider had focused completely on the survival of these people and their dwellings from one moment to the next.

A change in the wind alerted C'mine to a new danger even before a distant shout for help further down the line spurred him and Ogharn into motion. Rider and holder sprinted towards the source of the cry, their breathing harsh and ragged and their movements jerky with weariness.

The wind had changed direction and one powerful gust had blown the leading edge of the blaze north-east, forcing the flames onto the men trying to quell them. Through the brightly-dancing tongues of fire C'mine could see the outlines of men searching in vain for a way out of the ring of flame coming towards them from all directions. _Darshanth! We need some water here right now!_

_Siviath and Izalonth are on their way back to refill now. They'll be there as soon as they can._

_Not soon enough!_ C'mine caught sight of a glimmer of silver just beyond the flames. "Ogharn, is that the river?"

The holder nodded, his bloodshot eyes stark with horror. "Burning or drowning; it's no choice."

" _Between_ with that!" And shielding his face with one arm, C'mine dashed into the flames.

It was further than he had thought, and the heat was unbearable. C'mine felt his riding leathers catch fire, and pain streaked through every nerve in his body, but he clamped down on it with the old instinct of a rider blocking discomfort from his dragon. He refused to feel the shocking agony, closed his eyes to deny the incandescent flames that surrounded him, ignored the crackle and roar, and then finally he was through. Almost before he could throw himself to the ground there were men around him, pushing him down and beating out the flames with sacks or clothes or their bare hands. An instant later, with a bellowed curse, Ogharn staggered heavily through the blaze, also on fire.

"You're crazy!" one of the men who had helped save C'mine cried as the others urged Ogharn to drop and roll. "Do you _want_ to die?"

C'mine pulled himself to his feet, hurting, and trying to keep the pain from Darshanth. "There's two ways out of here," he said raggedly, and then coughed. His bandanna was gone, and every breath seemed to suck smoke into his lungs. It hurt. "Through the flames, or in the river."

There were six men in the clearing, or maybe twelve: C'mine couldn't tell, his vision was blurring so much, but as their leader glanced back over his shoulder at the river, visible through the thin sheet of flame that had licked along the dry bushes on its bank, the blue rider could see the fear. "I can't swim in that!"

"Yes you can," C'mine said doggedly. "Dragons are on their way."

"Shards, rider! You're half burnt to death, and we don't know how to swim!"

C'mine concentrated hard, and then remembered: he himself hadn't learned to swim until he'd Impressed Darshanth. The fast-flowing river would seem as deadly a force to these men as the fire. "You can take your chances in the water, or stay here and burn to death." His voice sounded slow, even to his own ears.

_Mine?_

He sent his dragon reassurance, but it was a feeble effort. His concentration was failing. He looked down at his hands and wondered what had happened to his gloves: there was little more on his hands than scraps of charred leather and ash. The pain came and went. "You have to get in the water," he said carefully, trying not to slur the words. His head felt thick and heavy: maybe that was affecting his hearing.

_C'mine?_

"Shard it, does anyone have any numbweed?"

C'mine heard Darshanth's tremulous query, and the vehement mutter of the forester who had spoken. "It's all right, I'm all right," he said aloud to both, and stumbled towards the river, sinking to a crouch on the bank, just inside the wall of fire. Flakes of blackened leather showered onto the ground from his clothes.

It seemed like an age before the first of the men screwed up his courage, and the fire closed in with every passing moment. One of the holders made a desperate charge through the fire, splashing into the river. Water spattered on the burning bank, damping the flames just enough for C'mine to see the speed of the current. The water flowed white and fast and cool. "Go on," he said thickly. "Dragons'll be here soon."

_C'mine, I'm coming._

One by one the foresters dived through the fire into the river. The current swept them away in moments, but a distant bugle overhead reassured C'mine that they would be all right. He dragged himself painfully to his feet, preparing to jump through himself.

"…Rider?"

The voice was weak, but C'mine turned around. Ogharn was still on the ground, an appalling sight: his clothes charred to threads, his flesh burnt red and black. The fire pressed close on all sides now. "How can you…move…like that…"

C'mine crouched by the forester and grabbed his arm, to pull him up, but Ogharn groaned with the pain. "Can't swim…can't move…go, go…"

"You're coming with me if I have to drag you, Ogharn," C'mine rasped.

The forester shook his head, his eyes closing. "Go…jump…in the river…Cairmine…"

A sapling crashed down across what little of the clearing was left, exploding into embers. C'mine seized Ogharn's arm again and crawled towards the river, dragging the holder's motionless form with him, but the bank seemed miles away, the flames and smoke thicker than ever. Fear broke through the shock that had been dulling C'mine's perceptions. This time there was no way out.

_C'MINE!_

Darshanth plummeted out of the sky, his eyes yellow and white with terror, his wings folded tight to his back so as not to impede his impossible nosedive. The blue screamed as he crashed through the canopies of burning trees, and C'mine could do nothing but close his eyes as his dragon dropped towards him on a collision course.

At the last possible instant, Darshanth's powerful talons snatched C'mine off the ground, and they went _between._


	12. Chapter Eleven

When the climbing rope slithered back down the cliff for the last time, T'kamen was quick to secure himself to it, pulling the knots tight on the rings of his riding belt. It had taken much longer to get twelve frightened holders up the cliff than it should have, what with hysterical women, ropes snagging on bushes, and the necessity of T'rello's line being completely replaced when a weakness had developed in it. All the while the flames had burned closer and hotter, spreading in fits and starts across the roof. By the time T'kamen had sent the last holder up his rope, and T'rello up his own, his situation had become moderately uncomfortable.

T'kamen checked a final time to see that the line was secure. _All right, Epherineth._

He gripped the rope above his head as his dragon started to pull in the line, pushing off against the cliff face every few moments. He was relieved that he and T'rello had succeeded in getting the forest holders to safety without significant incident, but now that the immediate crisis had been resolved his thoughts turned to the wider issue. _Any word from Darshanth?_

_He sent Derthauth back to the Weyr for help. Sejanth refused permission for any more dragons to come._

T'kamen swore. _D'feng. I'll kill him._

 _You said you would kill Peteorth's rider, too,_ Epherineth reminded him ironically.

_I know I did. Easy now, let me…_

He broke off as a final tug hauled him over the edge of the cliff. Epherineth's great forepaw swiped out to scoop him in, and the bronze rumbled with something like relief. _I was worried._

T'kamen thumped his dragon's forearm with a mixture of annoyance and affection. _Not a scratch on me, only the bruises you just made._

Epherineth blew out a breath that ruffled T'kamen's hair. _._

L'stev walked around the bronze's forearm. "A'len's taken most of them…" The brown rider looked askance at T'kamen for a moment, then continued, "… _between_ to the Hold; T'rello's just taking the last two now. You all right?"

T'kamen picked himself up and stepped out of the protective clasp of his dragon's claws. "Fine. You heard C'mine sent for more help?"

The brown rider nodded and tossed T'kamen the other end of the rope that was still secured to his belt. "D'feng would deny a blue, though. Sejanth couldn't have intimidated Vanzanth like that. Do you want us to go?"

"I want to make a pass over the fireline and see how they're doing before I take that step." T'kamen rapidly coiled the rope and lashed it to his dragon's harness, then swung up to Epherineth's neck.

The bronze launched off the edge of the cliff when T'kamen was in place, and banked north and east over the devastation left by the blaze. T'kamen couldn't begin to imagine how many acres of land and thousands of trees had been incinerated. He glanced back to see Vanzanth get airborne, and bade Epherineth wait for the smaller dragon to catch up.

 _The wind has changed,_ Epherineth remarked suddenly.

T'kamen glanced across the expanse of his dragon's wings to see how the bronze had altered their spread to accommodate the change. _What direction?_

_From the south-west. It smells like…._

Then Epherineth roared, and Vanzanth behind him too, and T'kamen grabbed the straps instinctively as his dragon's forward motion halted between one moment and the next. The shock and fear he felt through his dragon was staggering, and yet it was not, could not be, Epherineth's own. _What is it?_

 _Darshanth is in pain! His rider too – he has him – Darshanth goes_ between…

T'kamen's grip clenched spasmodically on the riding harness, and his stomach knotted into a mass of sick fear as he dreaded the awful cry that would surely mark the death of another dragon. He felt Epherineth's stillness, every muscle of the bronze's body tensed in terrible anticipation, and hardly dared ask. _Epherineth?_

Then they were abruptly _between_ , but in the total absence of physical sensation T'kamen could still feel his dragon's jubilation. _They live!_

They remained _between_ for what seemed like an age, long enough for T'kamen to wonder at the extent of Epherineth's initiative, and then the dragon erupted into the air above Kellad Hold, calling out to his brother. _Darshanth, we hear you, we're here!_

Far above, dull blue against the suddenly ominous sky, Darshanth struggled to control a dive he must have begun long before his jump _between_. Borrowing the use of Epherineth's eyes, T'kamen saw the blue dragon's unorthodox flight profile, and felt his heart lurch. Darshanth grasped C'mine in his forepaws, holding his rider desperately close to his body as he fought to open his wings against his enormous downwards velocity.

Epherineth jumped _between_ again, this time so briefly that T'kamen was barely aware of the darkness before they were out, emerging this time to flank the stricken blue, matching his angle and speed. Vanzanth appeared on Darshanth's off side, bugling encouragement to the shocked and frightened dragon.

Maybe it was the presence of the other dragons, or maybe Darshanth finally found the strength himself, but the blue's velocity slowed enough for him to spread his wings, catch the air, and pull up from his headlong descent. Epherineth roared and angled away from the smaller dragon's new flight path, gliding towards the courtyard of the Hold below. _Darshanth is hurt and his rider is worse._

_What in Faranth's name happened?_

_Fire._

T'kamen leaned back against Epherineth's steep descent, feeling like he had aged ten Turns in five minutes. _Shard it, Epherineth. Shard it all_ between _, we nearly lost them._

 _We may still,_ Epherineth replied, his tone one of such blunt authority that T'kamen felt momentarily like an errant weyrling, but the effect was necessary. _Egrath asks for instructions._

T'kamen put his fear and concern for C'mine aside, concentrating on the greater responsibility of his role as leader. _They're without a commander now. We should go._

Epherineth's response was instant. _Darshanth needs us. Vanzanth will go._

Relieved that his dragon's command decision concurred with his own, T'kamen signalled an affirmative to L'stev to confirm his mission. _Tell him I want a running commentary._ Another thought occurred to T'kamen. _Send T'rello back to the Weyr to get the dragon-healers, Darshanth might need them._

Epherineth swung his head over to bark an order at Santinoth, perching next to Peteorth on the fire-heights of Kellad. _I have. Vanzanth goes._ He said the last as L'stev's brown vanished _between_.

T'kamen put a hand on Epherineth's neck, as much to steady himself as to reassure his entirely independent and capable dragon. _Take us down._

* * *

As Sarenya sat down at one of the long trestle tables that had been moved out into the Bowl, Sleek appeared from nowhere to dive-bomb the plate she had just filled.

"Get out of it!" she told her blue irritably, waving the fire-lizard away. "Tarnish!"

Her bronze lizard, perched in his normal place on her shoulder, whistled a sharp rebuke at his smaller sibling, but there was something distracted about Tarnish's demeanour. The bronze would usually have anticipated Sleek's misbehaviour before it had begun.

Sarenya tossed Sleek a strip of meat to keep him quiet, then offered Tarnish another piece, stroking the little fellow's back as he accepted it with a soft chirp. "What is it, my lad? What's bothering you?"

Tarnish cocked his triangular head, gripping his scrap of meat in one forepaw. Sleek fluttered over to land on the back of Sarenya's chair, his eyes fixed on the forgotten treat in his brother's grasp. "Don't be greedy, Sleek," Sarenya told the blue. She transferred Tarnish from her shoulder to her forearm so she could look at him properly.

Across the table, the dragonless man, Chuvone, was watching Sleek with hooded eyes. Sarenya glanced up at him with a wry smile. "I don't know what's got into them today."

"It's not as if a fire-lizard has the sense to tell you," Chuvone replied.

Overhead, a dragon appeared from _between_ , bugling urgently. People jumped up from their places, voicing oaths as the bronze veered low above them. Sarenya tracked him across the sky, looking for Epherineth's identifying marks, but this dragon was more bulky than T'kamen's bronze, his hide brighter in hue.

"Santinoth," said a green rider Sarenya didn't know. "He's calling for the dragon-healers."

"Darshanth's been hurt!" another rider exclaimed.

Sick worry erupted in the pit of Sarenya's stomach. "What about C'mine? Is C'mine all right?" she asked, but every rider seemed to be talking to his dragon. At the head table, the Weyrwoman had come to her feet, her expression stricken.

Sarenya pushed back her chair, dislodging both her fire-lizards, and started towards where Santinoth was landing, first at a quick walk and then at a run. All over the Bowl, dragons were bugling to each other, their concern at their Weyrmate's distress evident in the glints of yellow in their eyes.

Santinoth's young rider was already being beleaguered from all directions by the time Sarenya got there. "C'mine was injured and Darshanth got hurt saving him," T'rello was explaining. "The Master Healer at Kellad is seeing to Mine, but Darshanth needs attention too."

L'dro was one of those crowding around the bronze, and the Weyrleader's expression was livid. "The careless idiot! How under the Red Star did he manage to put his dragon in danger!"

T'rello's eyes flashed with anger. "With respect, _sir_ , he was saving lives!"

"You're out of line, rider!" L'dro snapped.

Santinoth growled, a deep and menacing sound, and turned his head towards the Weyrleader with eyes turning orange. Sarenya stepped back instinctively from the angry dragon, and almost collided with the Weyr's Master Dragon-healer. "Shards, Master Vhion, my apologies…"

"Not necessary, journeyman." The rotund Master raised his voice. "Clear the way, here. Weyrleader, stand back." Vhion gestured to his assistant, struggling across the Bowl laden down with supplies, to hurry, and squinted up at T'rello. "You'll take us direct to Kellad, bronze rider?"

"Of course, sir," said T'rello, but the young rider was frowning down at his dragon.

"Well, T'rello, give me a hand up, we don't have all day!"

The bronze rider shook his head in visible confusion. "Sir, I'm sorry, but…Santinoth says he won't leave!"

"Shards of the Egg!" Vhion spun around and pointed at a rider standing nearby with her dragon. "You, green rider, take us to Kellad!"

The green rider blinked in surprise, then came to attention. "Right away, Master!"

As the Dragon-healer hastened towards the green, Sarenya raised a confused gaze to T'rello. What was wrong with the bronze rider? T'kamen had such a high opinion of the young man: what had caused this moment of unreliability when he was most needed?

Santinoth growled again, his voice rolling like thunder, and arched his neck threateningly. L'dro took several paces backwards from the young bronze, his expression suddenly blank, and then without warning he turned and ran towards the beast pens.

"Shards! T'rello exclaimed, his voice full of puzzlement. "Santinoth, you want to blood?"

The young dragonrider's words hung in the air for a moment, and then the mood of anxiety in the Weyr shifted palpably. Sarenya felt it, perhaps through her fire-lizards or perhaps not: a thrum of anticipation and excitement on a grand scale, the eager awe of lesser dragons, and an enormously powerful masculine need to prove dominance.

A bronze dragon launched himself down amongst the sluggish beasts in one of the stock pens; he was joined rapidly by a second and third, then three more. With a bestial roar, a seventh great male landed among the others to kill and blood, and in recognising the massive amber-eyed bronze as Pierdeth, Sarenya was jolted out of her fascinated reverie to face the facts.

Sarenya hadn't lived with her own bronze lizard for five Turns without learning a thing or two about his mating patterns. The bronzes always knew first. Indeed: Tarnish's odd mood suggested that even he, a mere fire-lizard, had been peripherally aware of the imminence of a dragon queen's flight.

Madellon's bronzes were blooding their kills. Soon, very soon, Shimpath would awaken, blood, and rise, and the mating flight every dragonrider in the Weyr had been anticipating for months would be underway.

And T'kamen wouldn't be there.

"T'rello!" Sarenya wasn't aware she had even moved until she found herself standing close to the agitated Santinoth, calling up to his rider. "T'rello, we have to call T'kamen back!"

"What?" The young rider slid down his dragon's side, stripping off the riding harness with awkward, jerky motions. His leathers were smeared with soot, he stank of smoke, and when he glanced at her his eyes behind his riding goggles were oddly glazed. "I can't, we're too…" T'rello shook his head, clearly already affected by his dragon's growing lust.

Sarenya backed away hurriedly as the powerful young bronze prepared to take off. "Shard it!"

She looked around for someone else she knew was supporting T'kamen's bid for the Weyrleadership, but riders already seemed to be scarce, and those she knew even more so. T'rello was useless, C'los would still be involved in the aftermath of his own dragon's mating, and T'kamen had taken the rest of his closest supporters with him to Kellad.

Sarenya's desperate gaze fell upon Chuvone. The dragonless man was staring across at Shimpath's ledge, where the queen still slept, oblivious for now to the ferocity of her suitors. "Chuvone!"

The gaunt-faced former rider, little older than Sarenya herself, turned his dead gaze upon her. "What do you want?"

"We have to get word to T'kamen at Kellad!"

A flicker of self-loathing crossed Chuvone's face, and he spread his hands, savagely mocking. "I can't help you. I don't have a dragon."

Sarenya took a deep breath. "I know, I'm sorry, but you have to know a rider who'll send for Kamen."

Chuvone laughed bitterly. "And if I did, why would I?"

She looked at the former blue rider uncomprehendingly. "You support Kamen…don't you?"

"Let me explain it to you, my journeyman Beastcrafter." There was something very wrong in Chuvone's eyes as he spoke. "Thirteen Turns ago I learned what happens to wingriders who think they should have a say in the chain of command."

Sarenya eyed the dragonless man warily. "I don't understand."

"I disobeyed L'dro once, and lost Gommeshath!" Chuvone snarled. "What in the name of his sweet egg makes you think I'd ever make that mistake again?"

The dragonless man suddenly began to sob, and Sarenya stepped away from him, alarmed. How long had Chuvone been lying about his allegiance to T'kamen? Was the dragonless man a traitor to the campaign, or was he still so mentally scarred by the loss of his dragon that he simply didn't know what he thought? Either way, he was of no more use to Sarenya than T'rello, and time was running short.

Sarenya cursed her situation, cursed the lack of a dragon that made her so useless, cursed the terrible misfortune that C'mine was injured and T'kamen absent for this most pivotal event. She _had_ to get a message to Kellad before it was too late.

Tarnish appeared from _between_ directly overhead, warbling his willingness to help, and she swore aloud at her stupidity. "Sear it to ash! Come here, my boy!" Fumbling for writing materials in her belt pouch, Sarenya scrawled a brief message in charcoal on a thin slip of hide. _T'kamen, bronzes blood! S._ She had nothing with which to tie the message to her lizard's hind leg, so she bade the little bronze grip the thin roll of hide tightly in his claws.

As Sarenya prepared her fire-lizard to deliver the message, uncertainty suddenly hit her. Was this the right thing to do?

She looked up at Shimpath, beginning to stir restlessly in her sleep: the queen that could have been hers. But for Valonna… Sarenya clamped down on the old indignation, but the bitterness was fresh. Valonna had Impressed Shimpath, the queen that could have been Sarenya's. She had won over C'mine, the friend that Sarenya valued above all others. Now, Valonna stood to win T'kamen, too: the man Sarenya had loved and lost and wanted back, and now stood to lose again – but only if she acted now.

If she helped T'kamen to win the Weyrleadership, she would lose him – not only to the rider of Madellon's only queen dragon, but to the enormous gulf that would once more open between their ranks. If she didn't, Pierdeth would surely win Shimpath's flight, L'dro would remain Weyrleader, and conditions for the bulk of Madellon's riders would stay the same, but she would have a chance to rediscover the old passion she and T'kamen had once shared, on an equal footing.

Tarnish squirmed in Sarenya's grasp as she struggled with the decision, torn between her heart and her mind. Then Sleek appeared from somewhere, projecting his excitement, and suddenly the blue fire-lizard made her think of another blue, and of his most gentle rider.

 _"_ _We need a new Weyrleader,"_ C'mine had said seriously. _"Can you think of anyone better than Kamen?"_

Sarenya swallowed back the tears, not sure if they were for C'mine or T'kamen, or both. "Take it to Kellad, Tarnish," she whispered to the little bronze, picturing Epherineth on the heights of the Hold. "Take it to him."

She let him go.

Tarnish went _between_.

* * *

Fr'ton and Peteorth were still standing watch on the fire-heights of Kellad Hold when a fire-lizard winked in, dropped the message he was carrying onto the rider of the bronze he had been sent to find, and vanished again.

"Ow!" Fr'ton exclaimed, as something bounced off his head.

 _What is it?_ Peteorth asked.

Fr'ton rubbed his head as he bent down to pick up what had dropped on him. "I don't know…"

* * *

T'kamen gritted his teeth against Darshanth's whimpers of pain and fear as he dismounted from Epherineth. The sound of any dragon in distress cut right through him, but Darshanth's worse than most. C'mine's dragon was a hideous shade of grey from more than just soot. The hide of his legs and underside was scorched and blistered, oozing greenish fluid. The blue dragon's eyes were ashen with pain, but he still held the motionless form of his rider in the protective circle of his forepaws, allowing none near him. The man in Healer colours who had hurried out from the Hold was keeping a wary distance from the wounded dragon.

"Scorch it," T'kamen muttered. "Darshanth! Darshanth, listen to me!"

The blue's head whipped around, and he half-barked, half-choked an irrational warning, baring his great teeth, but T'kamen stood his ground and pulled down his flying goggles. "Darshanth, it's me, T'kamen. Let us help you."

_He's my rider, I won't let him go, I can't!_

The hysteria in the blue's voice – and the uncomfortable shock of hearing another rider's dragon – made T'kamen swear under his breath. _Epherineth, talk to him!_

The bronze came closer, his movement restricted by the confines of the courtyard, and stretched out his neck to his smaller brother. _Darshanth, you must let the healer help your rider!_

_I can't!_

_You must!_

T'kamen felt the reluctance with which Epherineth exercised his authority over the smaller dragon, and Darshanth's piteous wail made him wince, but then the blue unclasped his claws from around C'mine and collapsed, defeated. _Help him, please help him._

T'kamen was running even as he called out to Kellad's Healer. "Master! Darshanth won't hurt you now."

"Bring numbweed for the dragon!" the Master Healer bellowed as he hastened to C'mine's side. "Shells and shards of shells…"

T'kamen made himself look down at his friend, and almost had to look away again. Under the scorched remains of his wherhides, C'mine was horribly injured. Patches of sticky red where skin should have been marked the worst of his burns, and the deep puncture wounds in his shoulders and back where Darshanth's desperate talons had penetrated the flesh bled freely. Dirt and soot had smeared into the burns and cuts. The riding goggles still in place had protected the blue rider's eyes, but other than Darshanth, there was little to suggested C'mine was still alive.

"His pulse is weak but steady, and he's breathing, but we have to stabilise his condition." The healer motioned sharply to two men standing by with a stretcher. "Let's get him to the infirmary."

"You can't take him out of his dragon's sight," T'kamen warned him. "Darshanth will berserk if you try to take him away."

The Master Healer frowned. "Erect a pavilion here," he told the stretcher-bearers. "I'll need the burns kit from the infirmary."

"What can I do?" T'kamen asked.

"Help the dragon," the Healer told him. "We'll do what we can with his rider."

Four men set down a massive barrel beside Darshanth, and one of them levered off the lid with a crowbar. T'kamen went over to inspect the pale green substance inside. He would have preferred a thinner salve to treat Darshanth's burns, and there were no brushes designed to apply it quickly to a beast the size of a dragon, but it would have to do. _Tell Darshanth we're going to help him,_ he told his dragon.

T'kamen scooped up a handful of numbweed, knowing it would take some time to penetrate through the leather of his gloves, and smeared it across the blistered hide of Darshanth's belly. The blue dragon flinched at the contact, then stood still, shivering.

 _He says it hurts less,_ Epherineth reported.

T'kamen was just relieved that Darshanth wasn't addressing him any more. Hearing someone else's dragon was an uncomfortable experience at the best of times. He gestured to the men who had brought the cask of salve. "Here, you can help. Just get the stuff on him wherever it looks like he's burned."

"Can we help?"

T'kamen hadn't been aware of the audience of holders, too focused on C'mine's plight, but now he regarded the crowd as a commodity. "The faster we get him comfortable, the easier it will be. But for Faranth's sake, be careful."

Holders came forward, some with more trepidation than others as they eyed the injured dragon. T'kamen asked Epherineth to steady the blue, in case the swarm of holders frightened the tortured dragon, then set to the work of deadening Darshanth's pain in earnest.

T'kamen left the broad expanses of Darshanth's belly and chest to the inexperienced holders, and tackled the more awkward areas himself. _Ask him to lift his left forepaw?_

Epherineth relayed the message, and Darshanth gingerly lifted the limb. "Thank you," T'kamen told the blue, and started spreading numbweed over Darshanth's burnt paw, in between each claw, around talons as long as T'kamen's hand.

On the heights, Peteorth bugled a greeting. _What's he saying, Epherineth?_

 _Othanth brings the dragon-healers_.

T'kamen muttered thanks to Faranth as the green dragon landed nearby. Vhion and his assistant were far better qualified to treat Darshanth than he. His training in dragon first-aid went little further than an initial application of numbweed to ease the pain.

Master Vhion raced across the courtyard at a speed belying his portly frame, puffing, "What happened, T'kamen?"

T'kamen shook his head. "We're not totally sure – Epherineth and I caught up to him coming out of _between_ in a nosedive."

The dragon-healer moved around to the forepaw not yet coated in numbweed, inspecting Darshanth's burns. "The damage to his hide will be painful, but not crippling. I'd rather you'd have had him douse himself in water, but you were right to get these people numbing him. His wings aren't injured?"

_Ask him to open his wing, Epherineth?_

A moment later the blue complied, spreading the translucent breadth of his right wing. Vhion made a rapid assessment, brushing ash from the blue's sail, then shook his head. "They're intact. We'll need to get some aloe salve on his underside once he's numb, and somehow I'll need to contrive dressings to protect the burn until this ash has died down, but shock is the biggest danger right now. What's C'mine's condition?"

"Unconscious."

"Shards," Vhion muttered, and gestured that they should go and attend the wounded blue rider.

A canvas shelter had been erected to shield C'mine from the worst of the ash in the air as well as from the watching eyes of the many holders in the courtyard. The Kellad healer glanced up as T'kamen and Vhion approached. "Keep back," he warned them curtly. "Conditions are bad enough without you stirring up more ash."

T'kamen set his jaw and made himself watch as the Master Healer stripped away the charred fragments of C'mine's leathers and swabbed his wounds with a briskness that made the bronze rider wince. It was just as well the blue rider was unconscious. Gauze pads had been placed over the wounds in C'mine's shoulders, and as fast as the healer cleaned the motionless blue rider's burns, his assistants salved and dressed them, but T'kamen felt sick, not only at the extent of the injuries, but with the knowledge that he was to blame for them. He had let C'mine come. He had put him in charge. He should have known the blue rider was too selfless for his own good. C'mine's great heart made him a liability to himself in so dangerous a situation, and T'kamen had put him in a position to risk his own safety. T'kamen found he was clenching his fists to the point of pain, but he couldn't bring himself to relax.

_T'kamen, you can't blame yourself._

_I shouldn't have made him lead!_ T'kamen shook his head. _Shard it, he's only a blue rider!_

The bronze rumbled disagreement, making several nearby holders step back hurriedly. _Any dragon would be proud to call C'mine his rider._

T'kamen sensed that Epherineth's fierce advocacy of C'mine was as much for Darshanth's comfort as his own, but it barely eased T'kamen's sense of culpability. The contrast of C'mine's calm and compassionate personality to his own short temper, and indeed to C'los' erratic brilliance, sometimes made him forget that the blue rider was the youngest of them all by a full Turn. Now, T'kamen felt keenly responsible for C'mine's injuries, not only as a rider under his command, but as a man he had considered his brother for twenty Turns.

"T'kamen?"

The tentative query intruded on his focus, and T'kamen turned sharply to glare at the blond rider hovering behind him. He hadn't noticed Peteorth come down off the fire-heights. "What do you want, Fr'ton?"

"Well, this arrived," Fr'ton began, holding out a grubby strip of hide, "or actually it sort of…landed on me…Peteorth thinks it might have…"

Lacking the patience to listen to the other bronze rider ramble, T'kamen snatched the hide out of Fr'ton's hand and unfolded it.

"…been delivered by a fire-lizard," Fr'ton continued, "and I guess it's for you, but I didn't really understand…"

"' _Bronzes blood'_ ," T'kamen murmured, his eyes tracing the hastily scribbled words, and a shock jolted through his body. Fr'ton was still talking, but T'kamen couldn't hear him for the sudden thunder of his own pulse, and the awareness of Epherineth reaching out to the distant Weyr with his mind.

 _Shimpath!_ the bronze hissed.

"Oh, Faranth," T'kamen said aloud, feeling Epherineth's mounting agitation channel into him through their abruptly heightened link. "Not now…why did she have to choose now…"

"Bronze rider?" Vhion asked, from beside him.

T'kamen tried to fix his eyes upon the dragon-healer, but Epherineth's awareness of the Madellon queen's imminent rising was demanding his attention, his focus, all of his mind. "The bronzes blood their kill at Madellon. Shimpath will rise…"

_T'kamen! We have to go now!_

Epherineth's mental roar was deafening. T'kamen stumbled back a pace, staggered, as his need to stay with C'mine warred with his dragon's urgency.

"Bronze rider. _Bronze rider!_ "

A violent shake brought T'kamen out of the morass of crimson need and desire that was his dragon's mind. Vhion's grip on his shoulders was powerful, despite the dragon-healer's stature. "There's nothing you can do for C'mine," Vhion told him firmly. "We're doing everything we can. Take Epherineth and go."

"I can't leave him," T'kamen said stubbornly, but he was losing his fight for control.

 _You must._ Darshanth's voice penetrated weakly through the fierce hunger of Epherineth's consciousness. _You must, for C'mine. For all of us._

The last of T'kamen's opposition to Epherineth's desire dissolved with the blue dragon's insistence. He was barely aware of the time it took to cross the courtyard to his own dragon, barely aware of mounting or securing the safety straps. Epherineth took off almost before T'kamen was in place.

 _There!_ The great bronze's cry was half mental, half animal, and he banked hard across the back of the Hold. The wind stung tears from T'kamen's unshielded eyes, but as his senses increasingly combined with Epherineth's, he became aware of his dragon's target.

The bronze dived towards the stampeding herd of beasts he had spied from the air. With no hint of his normal finesse, Epherineth clawed a cow to the ground. T'kamen held fast to the safety straps as his dragon hauled the herdbeast closer, and silenced its terrified screams with his jaws.

The taste of hot blood intoxicated T'kamen. Barely aware of himself anymore, he drank and grew strong with his dragon as Epherineth tossed the limp body of his prey aside. The bronze tore off the head of his second victim and gulped down the gush of blood from its throat, glorying in the wild and primal energy it sent flowing through his own veins.

Primed and ready, Epherineth battered the second corpse aside. He leapt into the air, and the image he and T'kamen formed together as they went _between_ was not of the peaceful Bowl of Madellon, but of the queen they knew was theirs, and of the many other bronzes who dared challenge their claim on her.

* * *

As a fiercely glowing Shimpath launched herself off her ledge to pounce on a terrified wherry hen, Sarenya scanned the sky in increasing desperation. Where was Epherineth?

Tarnish had returned shortly after she had sent him to Kellad, offering a vague image of dropping the message on the bronze on the fire-heights there, but the fire-lizard was too fascinated by Shimpath's imminent flight to be entirely coherent. Sarenya felt it too, the dragons' general broadcast amplified through her lizards. It was clear now why dragonriders had to live separately from holders: distraction on the scale of a queen's mating flight would have completely disrupted a working Hold. But Sarenya's growing fear that T'kamen was going to miss this most crucial of flights overrode even the building emotions of queen and bronzes.

The lesser dragons of Madellon watched avidly from their ledges, and their riders, obviously affected by Shimpath's mating lust to a far greater extent than any non-rider, stood transfixed in the Bowl. Sarenya scanned the bronzes waiting poised in a circle around the frenzied queen again, but there was no dragon there with Epherineth's lean conformation, no hide gleaming with his unique colour.

Sarenya wouldn't even have noticed the pair of dragons gliding in over the south edge of the Rim but for the flash of familiar green she caught in the corner of her eye as Indioth and her victor, a blue smaller and less sleek than Darshanth, returned at last from their own mating. The green coasted towards her own weyr ledge, and turned weary eyes on the proceedings below, obviously too tired to react.

Sarenya made a dash for the cave. She hurried up the short flight of steps, giving thanks to Faranth that the ledge was so easily accessible. "Sorry Indioth, I really need to talk to Los," she panted to the green dragon, and without pausing for an answer, went inside.

The interior of the weyr was dim compared to the brightness of midsummer sun outside. Sarenya groped through the dragons' great chamber, almost walking into the edge of their couch, and found her way into the living area of the weyr. "C'los?" She strained to see through the darkness, but it was a faint sound from one of the sleeping alcoves that alerted her. "C'los, are you there?"

An arm appeared, hooking around the edge of the drape dividing living from sleeping area, and then abruptly the curtain was yanked back. C'los gazed out fuzzily from a tangle of arms and legs and sleeping furs. "Whaissit, Saren?"

Sarenya didn't know whether to be amused or embarrassed, whether she should look to see which rider had won Indioth's flight or look away entirely. She settled for squinting at a point just above C'los' head. "Shimpath's rising, and T'kamen's still away at Kellad."

"Kellad?" C'los looked like he was having trouble focusing his eyes. "Why's he at Kellad?"

"It's a long story, Los, but C'mine's been hurt, and now Shimpath's rising and Epherineth's not here!"

"C'mine's been…" The green rider gazed dumbly at her for a moment, then twisted around to stare at the man sprawled on the couch beside him. "What the… I thought… Shard it all, Saren, what's happened to Mine?"

Sarenya watched helplessly as C'los tried to leap out of bed, found he was tangled in the furs, and eventually crawled out with a string of muttered invectives. "There was a forest fire. Kamen and Mine went to help."

The green rider had gone as pale as a man with naturally brown skin possibly could. He pulled on the leather pants that were hanging over the back of a chair, dragged a shirt over his shoulders and stamped his feet into his boots in a matter of moments. "Where is he?"

"Still at Kellad, I think, but Shimpath's flight…"

" _Between_ with Shimpath's Threaded flight!" C'los exploded. "C'mine, oh, Faranth… _Indioth!_ "

As the green rider sprinted from his weyr, hair dishevelled, clothes half hanging off him, Sarenya was left staring at the now-awake man still lying in the mess of sheets on C'los' bed. The rider stared blearily back at her. "Who're you?"

"Sorry, long story," Sarenya apologised, and hurried after C'los.

Indioth was aloft before Sarenya reached the ledge. She shielded her eyes against the fiercer light. "Tell T'kamen!" she shouted after dragon and rider, but with the din of the green dragon's wings she doubted either heard her.

Sarenya looked desperately towards the stock pens where Shimpath's suitors still crouched, watching the queen blood her kills with angry eyes. Not far from Indioth's ledge, bronze riders surrounded the blank-faced Valonna, their eyes as hot and intent as those of their dragons.

Two more dragons erupted low into the sky over the Weyr with bellows of fury that almost shook the ground. Sarenya shaded her eyes with one hand as she gazed up to identify the latecomers against the blazing sun, and she almost shouted with relief as she recognised Epherineth's iridescently-shimmering hide.

Both bronzes landed close by, just long enough for their riders to slide free, and then – without even pausing to have their riding straps removed – the two great males, Epherineth and the smaller, paler dragon Sarenya identified as Peteorth, made for the feeding grounds.

The waiting bronzes howled their indignation at the new contenders, snaking their massive necks skywards to challenge the right of these latecomers to compete for their queen, flaring their wings to make it impossible for them to claim places in the circle of bronze that ringed Shimpath. Epherineth checked his descent, holding his position with crimson eyes and bared teeth, but Peteorth blundered on, less adept in the air, and two of the dragons on the ground were forced to move. Epherineth and Peteorth landed fast and crouched in readiness, their wings half open, their eyes as scarlet as the fresh blood that still splashed their muzzles.

Shimpath drained her last victim and threw her head back, shrieking a contemptuous challenge to the males, stretching out her incandescent wings and whipping her tail back and forth, every inch of her hide glowing as bright as the sun. The queen was as terrible and beautiful a sight as Sarenya had ever beheld, golden and blood-smeared and marvellous. She screamed a final time, her voice full of rage, lust, and need, and with a thrust of her massive hind legs, Shimpath was aloft.

An instant later the bronzes were after her, some faster than others, but within moments the stock pens were empty except for the mutilated corpses of forty animals, and a scant few seconds after that the shining specks of gold and bronze, so brilliant against the azure sky, were gone.

Sarenya dragged her gaze away from the painful brightness of the sky to look at the earthbound riders. Instinctively her eyes sought out T'kamen. The flame in the bronze rider's eyes was unquenchable; the snarl that bared his teeth was inhuman; the massive force coiled in his tensed muscles spoke of a purpose that surpassed anything she could understand. Sarenya looked away, rapidly changing her assessment of the situation. These riders were not earthbound. In pursuit, in mating, they flew as high as their dragons, leaving the ground, and their flightless fellow humans, far behind.

* * *

The air was thick with wings, but Epherineth flew strong and swift, and T'kamen flew with him. It would have been impossible to say where dragon ended and rider began, and neither part of the greater whole that was Epherineth cared enough to try. They were together, single of purpose, strong and magnificent.

Shimpath soared ahead of them, close enough to fill their eyes and mind with her nearness, but far enough to make them burn with frustration at the distance. Epherineth's eyes never left the dazzling form of the queen. Every fibre of every muscle in his body was energised with the need to make her his, but for now Shimpath had the measure of every bronze in the sky, and she didn't even deign to acknowledge them as they pursued her.

Epherineth contented himself with merely following where his prize led, matching her speed so as not to fall behind, but pacing himself. Shimpath was larger than him, stronger, faster for now, but when she tired he would not, and then he would claim her.

All around him, higher and lower, ahead and behind and to both sides, twenty others filled the sky with the thunder of their wingbeats. A part of Epherineth knew their names, recognised the pattern of their flight, watched them, scorned them as the first broke off the chase. He flew on, higher and further, matching Shimpath's every move.

The awareness of danger penetrated his avid admiration of the queen. His dodge was half impulse, half instinct, and a dragon dropped through the air where he had just been. Epherineth bellowed his rage and lashed out, feeling his claws rake through fragile wingsail. The other's bronze's hiss turned to a scream of pain, and he spiralled out of control, nearly colliding with another dragon.

The fate of two of his adversaries meant nothing to Epherineth, but the incident had cut the pack of bronzes in half. The dragons closest to Shimpath now had the advantage over those whose flight had been disrupted. Epherineth rent the air with his wings, anger driving him now as he battled to make up the distance he had lost. Behind him, weaker dragons gave up, dismayed or exhausted.

Shimpath acknowledged her suitors now, and her seductive call filled Epherineth with renewed lust. He watched with crazed eyes as the golden dragon dropped back to taunt the leading bronzes, and strained to catch up.

A single dragon, the largest of them all, broke free of the pack with a sudden burst of speed and made a grab for Shimpath as she veered past. But the queen was too clever, dropping beneath the massive dragon's reach and screaming her contempt. Another bronze strained to fly below the queen, forcing her up towards the clutches of the big male above, but Shimpath darted sideways, splendidly swift.

Yet another dragon howled in frustration and fell away, and Epherineth took his place. The biggest bronze was still there, sheer strength and crimson-eyed fury pushing him on, but Epherineth was within a length of his goal now. Shimpath teased and flirted with the remaining males, tantalisingly close. She slipped out of the path of one desperate grab with contemptuous ease and squealed her delight as another dragon dropped away, spent.

They flew so high Epherineth could feel the cold, thin air burning in his straining lungs, and only four remained in the chase. Shimpath gloried in her strength and agility, making turns and dips that forced her suitors to react quickly or else fail. A sharp veer threw off the dragon flying on Epherineth's right flank.

He was tiring now, the flush of energy that had filled him to overflowing waning, but the edge was leaving the queen's manoeuvres, too. The two dragons on either side of Epherineth flew on grimly, and now he recognised them: Izath by his dark hide, and the monstrous brute that was Pierdeth. Awareness of his rivals shored up Epherineth's fading strength. But another source of energy was flowing on the wind, a force not of flesh or blood, nor of the dragons themselves. It drove Epherineth on, wrapping around him, silent and invisible, willing him to succeed, and he took heart from it.

Izath faded away. Shimpath was tired, her repertoire exhausted. Epherineth and Pierdeth matched her, but more than that, they matched each other. The two bronzes – brothers, clutchmates, rivals – strove to outlast each other. Pierdeth was straining, panting hard, his crimson eyes dull with the effort, but Epherineth ignored the wrenching of his muscles and the stabbing in his chest as his breath grew short. The unknown, intangible force that sustained him was enough. It would never let Pierdeth defeat him.

As the big bronze failed he threw back his head in a terrible cry of loss and anguish. Pierdeth dropped like a stone, his massive strength sapped, his cause lost.

Epherineth, triumphant over every other bronze of Madellon Weyr, had but one more dragon over whom to claim victory. Shimpath no longer strove to outfly him. With a howl of triumph, Epherineth seized his willing prize, for himself, for his rider, and for the Weyr that had chosen him, and gave himself up to the passion of the queen.


	13. Chapter Twelve

Valonna woke abruptly, drawing a sharp breath as her eyes searched frantically for something familiar in the strange room.

 _Be calm,_ said Shimpath, her voice filled with enormous satisfaction. _All is well._

Valonna sat up, seeing but not registering the bruises on her upper arm, groping through the tumult of recent memories. The couch beside her was empty, but as she gazed around the sparsely-furnished room she saw the silhouette of a rider, sitting before the hearth, cradling a cup in both hands.

"L'dro?" she asked timidly, but even before the rider looked at her, she knew it was not.

"No." His voice was soft, tired, without a hint of smugness. The rider rose from his place by the hearth, and as he turned to face her the light of the small fire washed across the stark lines of his profile.

"T-T'kamen?"

The bronze rider nodded slowly.

Suddenly flustered, Valonna clutched the bedfur to herself, acutely aware of her nakedness before a strange man. She was relieved when T'kamen turned his head slightly. She groped for her clothes, found they had been piled on the floor beside the sleeping couch, and noticed then that T'kamen was fully dressed in ash-smudged fighting leathers. How long had he been awake before she had roused?

She dressed quickly, then stood smoothing down her skirts, unsure of what to do. It hadn't been like this last time. L'dro was the only man she had ever known – had been, she corrected herself. And yet for all her uncertainty and embarrassment, and the residual mental shock of the flight, Valonna felt…all right.

"Sit down, Weyrwoman." T'kamen motioned to the second chair by the hearth. "We should talk."

 _All is well,_ Shimpath told Valonna again. _Sit. Talk._

Valonna sat, tucking her skirts well away from the grate. She folded her hands in her lap and gazed at them as T'kamen resumed his own seat, wondering what he was going to say.

"I don't know you, Valonna, so I can't presume to know what you're thinking." The bronze rider's level tone was courteous, but unapologetic. "As your Weyrleader, the first thing I ask from you is that you tell me."

Valonna looked up. T'kamen's dark gaze didn't waver, and the hard lines of his expression daunted her. "You…want to know what I'm thinking?"

"Yes," he replied. "Not just now. Always. I need to know what you think, what you want, what you need. I can't promise you'll always get it, but if I don't know, I can't try."

T'kamen's quiet words confused Valonna. What did he want from her? He'd already seized the Weyrleadership for himself. "Why?" she asked.

"There are going to be changes," he said. "Some big, some not so big, but the one I want to establish right now is the way you, as Weyrwoman, will be treated." His gaze held hers firmly. "You are the queen's rider, and the honour due your circumstance has never been in doubt, but you are also the Weyrwoman of all Madellon, and that is the role for which you haven't been respected." He raised his head slightly, and Valonna lifted her chin. "You are the rightful leader of the Weyr, Valonna, and I won't tolerate any form of disrespect directed at you. But you should know that I consider you Weyrwoman in deed as well as name. I will expect you to serve your riders."

The matter-of-fact tone of his voice somehow chilled Valonna more than any of L'dro's sudden rages, and she bowed her head in acquiescence. "I'll do my best, Weyrleader."

"That's all I ask," T'kamen said, more softly. "Thank you."

Valonna looked up at the lean bronze rider, still shy of him, but reassured by his even manner. "Shimpath chose you," she said, thinking of the extraordinary chase her queen had led.

The shade of a smile touched T'kamen's mouth for a moment. "In three months, we'll see."

Valonna looked away, shyly this time, thinking ahead to when Shimpath would lay her eggs. But the thought that this clutch, resulting from such a long flight, might be larger and better than that sired by Pierdeth filled her with a sudden sense of chagrin. "What's going to happen to L'dro?"

T'kamen's expression turned more grim, but he appeared to consider the question for some moments. "That will depend on him," he said finally. "Valonna…" He frowned, looking suddenly fierce. "I won't tell you who you can or can't have in your weyr. But I would ask you to use your judgement, and your queen's judgement. Madellon is in a weak political position in Pern at this time. I intend for us to do something about that, but we will need to present at least the appearance of a united front."

"Will you…be staying in my weyr?" Valonna queried uncertainly. She wasn't sure she understood what T'kamen was saying.

The bronze rider shook his head. "I wouldn't expect you to welcome that. And I'm used to living alone." He paused long enough for Valonna to realise it was a dry joke, then continued in a tone that was pointedly more formal. "Weyrwoman, our relationship is political, not personal. In a Pass, if Shimpath were rising more often, it might be different, but I don't see any reason to put that kind of strain on our relationship. Keep your liaisons discreet, and I will do the same."

Valonna couldn't see herself enjoying _any_ liaisons, not with the veiled warning against being with L'dro that T'kamen had expressed. "I will, Weyrleader."

T'kamen leaned back in his chair, running his fingers wearily through his hair. He looked exhausted, with more than the fatigue of even such a long flight. Then Valonna noticed the soot on his clothes again, remembering what had happened before Shimpath's mating, and her hand flew to her mouth. "What happened at Kellad?"

The bronze rider shook his head. "I still don't know. Epherineth and I left at a bad moment." His eyes went briefly distant, and then narrowed. "The situation is under control for the moment, and C'mine is stable, but the dragons there need to be relieved." He got decisively to his feet.

Valonna hung back, suddenly daunted by the prospect of facing the Weyr. Looking about for a distraction, she focused on the flying gloves lying on the edge of the hearth. She stooped to pick them up. "T'kamen, you forgot your…oh!"

She dropped the gloves as her fingers tingled and then went numb. T'kamen looked back from the entrance of the room with a wry half-smile. "I should have warned you about that…"

* * *

The first jug of wine had gone down like water, the second had taken the edge off the intensity of Pierdeth's agony and frustration, but the third – which should have pushed him into a hazy, painless stupor – had made L'dro angry instead.

The surprise when Shimpath had evaded Pierdeth's first grab had turned into a greater determination to best the queen which had sustained the huge bronze through the gruelling latter stages of the flight. But when Pierdeth had faltered, having pushed himself to the point of physical injury only to see another bronze take _his_ queen, the shock to L'dro's system of being violently thrown back into his own sweating, shivering body had been appalling.

Someone had given him wine, and L'dro had gulped the liquid down without tasting it, letting it dull the shock. Somehow he had found his way across the Bowl to meet his returning dragon. Pierdeth was still a shaking wreck, his condition worse than that of any of the other unsuccessful bronzes besides Alonth, whose left wingsail had been torn to ribbons during the flight, and who had barely managed to land safely, howling in pain. But in defeat, Pierdeth, L'dro's magnificent giant of a dragon, was a pathetic shell of himself.

Defeat…L'dro barely suppressed the urge to scream aloud. How had this happened? How could he possibly have lost? He had Valonna's vapid devotion, the support of all but four of Madellon's bronze riders, and the deal with H'ersto as a failsafe to guarantee Epherineth's removal from the flight if necessary. Everything had worked out beautifully, with T'kamen and three of the mutinous bronzes at Kellad when Shimpath had finally come into heat. How T'kamen had even found out that the queen was rising was a mystery to L'dro's pain and drink-fogged mind. But somehow everything had fallen apart. Epherineth had arrived in time to give chase; H'ersto's professed control over Alonth had been proved a farce when his dragon, not T'kamen's, had been the one to limp home with a wing so badly injured he might never fly again; Shimpath had evaded Pierdeth's capture time and again; and ultimately the flight had dragged on until Pierdeth had no longer been able to follow.

As L'dro slumped, half unconscious, against his devastated bronze, the full meaning of their defeat slowly percolated past the sluggish rage in his mind. He was not the Weyrleader any more. The insignia he had worn on every item of clothing for the last four Turns was meaningless. He would have to move out of his sumptuous weyr. The resources of the Weyr would no longer be his to dip into at will. The connections he had bought or bullied among the Lords of Madellon's territories would be worthless to him.

But worst: a taste that was bitter in his mouth, rank in his nostrils, foul to the point of nauseating in his stomach; worst of all, the knowledge that Epherineth's rider had beaten him filled L'dro with fury, fear, and abject despair.

How could he serve under T'kamen? How could a man go from supreme leader to subordinate within the space of a day? It was ludicrous. He, L'dro, was the Weyrleader. No upstart bronze with an unranked rider could be fit to lead. Shimpath had been stupid to evade Pierdeth. Epherineth had been lucky, not worthy.

The sluggish reasoning oozed from L'dro's brain, and with it, a drunken solution. He dragged himself upright, swaying on his feet. Riders were congregating across the Bowl, around the entrance to the chamber that had been used for the flight. L'dro headed that way with a growing sense of purpose.

If T'kamen, and that silly bitch Valonna, thought L'dro was going to give in without a fight equal to that Pierdeth had provided, the hundred-times Threaded rider of bronze Epherineth was in for a very nasty surprise.

* * *

T'kamen and Valonna emerged into the ruddy light of the sun going down on the Turn. It was uncomfortably warm after the cool of the deep-set cavern, but the fierce heat of the day had eased. The dark silhouettes of dragons against the scarlet sky crowned the Rim, and two mighty forms glided gracefully over the Bowl, calling out in greeting.

"Shimpath!" Valonna cried, and ran to throw her arms about the queen's foreleg.

T'kamen walked stiffly to his bronze, feeling the exertions of the day setting into his muscles. Epherineth lowered his great head to him, his eyes gleaming like star-filled sapphires. T'kamen laid his hands on the sleek muzzle, expressing without words or effort the magnitude of love and pride he felt for his dragon, his bronze, his Epherineth.

 _We fly well together, you and I_ , the bronze said softly.

T'kamen closed his eyes to recall their merging, those precious minutes of total combination, rider and dragon more than linked, more than together: united as one being. The green dragons they had chased and won had not demanded the same level of submersion; the queens they had chased and lost had left them too dazed to recall their absolute fusion. In winning Shimpath, T'kamen knew he and Epherineth had reached a level of understanding that few riders ever would. They had stayed as one throughout that glorious fall to earth, until safety demanded that queen and bronze, and dragons and riders, break apart.

The violent return to himself had shaken T'kamen, far more than the sudden consciousness of Valonna where Shimpath had been. The division of the gestalt of which he was a part into rider and dragon had pained him, and while the regret was fading now, he knew Epherineth understood and shared it.

T'kamen moved to the fighting harness still buckled on Epherineth's neck, loosening the straps. They hadn't affected the bronze in flight, but now their continued presence was causing him mild discomfort. T'kamen ran his hand lightly along the chafe marks on Epherineth's sweaty hide.

"Weyrleader?"

He turned at Valonna's hesitant query, Epherineth's harness looped over his shoulder. Riders and Weyrfolk were gathering, looking expectant. T'kamen slowly coiled his dragon's rig and set it on the ground by Epherineth's forepaw. He placed a hand briefly on the bronze neck, then stepped up to face the growing crowd.

Most of the younger faces were eager, excited. Many older riders wore respectful expressions. Some merely regarded him with interest. But there were unfriendly faces in the crowd, too, and T'kamen recognised brown riders who had prospered under L'dro, including F'digan, and the devastated expressions of bronze riders who had failed.

Talking to Valonna had not been easy, but addressing an audience was even harder. T'kamen wasn't an orator. He had spent his life keeping his own counsel. C'los would surely have urged him to make a victory speech, but the green rider was nowhere to be seen, and rhetoric was beyond him. Shimpath had risen, Epherineth had caught her, T'kamen was Weyrleader. Stating the obvious wouldn't achieve anything, but what else was there to say?

T'kamen fought to keep the deep weariness out of his voice as he spoke. "The riders still at Kellad need reinforcements. I need twenty riders willing to help."

The crowd stirred, visibly surprised by his words, clearly expecting to hear something pertaining to T'kamen's sudden rise in power. But then a young blue rider stepped forward and saluted, standing to attention. "Weyrleader, sir, Reth and I would be honoured to serve."

Gerah, the stern old green rider T'kamen had counted as a wingmate under F'digan, was the next to come forth. "These ancient bones are yours to command, too, Weyrleader."

As Madellon's riders answered his call for the second time that day, T'kamen recognised and appreciated the subtle shift in emphasis. Riders like Gerah, who knew they were not equipped for a hazardous rescue mission whose perils had already seriously injured one dragonpair, were volunteering regardless, putting their trust in the man they acknowledged as their rightful Weyrleader to choose wisely from those who offered their help. The deference they showed was not to the title of Weyrleader, but to the rider laying his own victory aside in favour of his responsibility to the riders under his command.

"Weyrleader?" The sneer silenced the renewed buzz of excitement, and the crowd of riders parted almost instinctively to reveal the speaker. T'kamen narrowed his eyes as he regarded L'dro.

The other bronze rider staggered closer, unkempt and stinking of wine. "There's only one Weyrleader here, and that's me!"

L'dro's declaration took a moment to register with T'kamen, incredible as it was. "Stand away, L'dro," he said softly.

"Who do you think you are, bronze rider?" the former Weyrleader raged. "Think you're so important because that wherry you ride got lucky?"

The watching riders reacted with muted disbelief at L'dro's words, but T'kamen knew that this situation was for him to disarm. L'dro was sodden with drink, and his raving was absurd, but there was definite potential for violence in the air. "You shame your dragon, L'dro, and insult the queen's choice. Go and sober up."

L'dro bristled, his lips curling in a snarl. "You can't tell me what to do, rider! You're nothing!" Wild-eyed, he looked around at the crowd, isolating several bronze riders. "S'herdo! Y'kat! D'feng! This idiot isn't even a member of the Council! You can't possibly accept him!"

The three riders, each looking exhausted from their dragons' failure to fly Shimpath, stirred uneasily, but said nothing to support L'dro. D'feng's lips were set in a thin, disapproving line as he avoided his former Weyrleader's gaze.

Incredulous, L'dro looked about for supporters. "L'mis!" he cried. "Tell them!"

But the old bronze rider just shook his head slowly.

Speechless with disbelief, L'dro gaped at T'kamen. "You…how dare you…"

Pierdeth's rider lunged suddenly, but T'kamen had been expecting the move. He sidestepped, letting L'dro charge on unchecked.

The ranting bronze rider stumbled, bellowing, to a halt, looking and sounding for all the world like a maddened herdbeast. "I'll kill you!"

T'kamen stepped aside again as L'dro rushed him, but this time he deliberately tripped his old rival. With a yell, L'dro went flying.

But before the former Weyrleader could rise, a massive golden forepaw descended upon him, pinning him to the ground. Shimpath curved her neck and hissed at the writhing, screaming L'dro, holding him in place with the merest fraction of her awesome strength. The bronze rider stopped thrashing as needle-sharp talons nipped into his chest, staring up in terror as the greatest of all Madellon dragons demonstrated her displeasure with him.

"No, Shimpath, let him go!"

Valonna's cry silenced Shimpath's menacing hiss. The queen shot a reluctant glance towards her rider and haughtily removed her paw, as if even touching L'dro had offended her.

T'kamen watched with a sinking feeling as Valonna hurried over to the bronze rider lying on the ground. L'dro seemed too dazed to move, as indeed anyone who had just found himself as the mercy of an angry queen dragon might be.

But Valonna's expression as she looked down at her former weyrmate was not sympathetic but disappointed, perhaps even to the point of disgust. As if blinkers had suddenly been removed from her eyes, the Weyrwoman gazed at the man who had dominated her for the last seven Turns, and perhaps finally saw him for what he was.

"I think you should go," she said quietly.

T'kamen nodded discreetly to a couple of burly riders who had been standing by. Valonna turned away from her lover as the two green riders hauled the still-dazed L'dro to his feet and half dragged, half marched him away. Her eyes were dry, but the anguish in them was plain. T'kamen met the Weyrwoman's gaze, grudgingly impressed by her composure under the circumstances, and nodded his approval.

Then he turned his attention back to the gathered riders. "Politics can wait until tomorrow. There are tired riders and dragons who need replacing." He rapidly named a Wingful of riders, choosing only green, blue, and brown riders.

"Weyrleader, Santinoth and I are ready to go again," T'rello protested weakly.

T'kamen regarded the weary young bronze rider with deep pride. "You've done your part, T'rello, and Santinoth. Rest now."

"You should do the same, Weyrleader."

The gruff voice belonged to R'hren. The man who had been Weyrleader himself stepped from the ranks of riders, and murmured to T'kamen, "First rule of being Weyrleader – if your dragon's just flown a queen, you're both allowed a rest."

T'kamen met the old bronze rider's steady gaze with the hint of a smile as they clasped forearms. "I'll defer to that wisdom, my friend." Then he raised his voice. "J'vondan, you're in charge. Report to L'stev."

The brown rider saluted proudly. "Yes sir!"

* * *

Vanzanth followed Epherineth and Shimpath out of _between_ into a downpour.

Mounted behind L'stev, Sarenya cringed against the unexpected deluge. She heard the brown rider cursing good-naturedly ahead of her, felt Vanzanth's happy rumble, and realised what the rain meant to the riders who had been working through the night.

Sarenya peered down through the sheeting rain as an arpeggio of bugles rang out from below. Dragons crowded side by side on the fire-heights, their hides shiny with rain. People leaned out of the windows of the Hold in spite of the weather, staring up at the most unusual spectacle of a queen dragon.

As Vanzanth spiralled down towards the courtyard, Sarenya caught sight of the blue dragon already there, lying awkwardly on his side with a canvas awning sheltering him from the rain. Vanzanth reduced the speed of his descent, waiting for the other two dragons to land, before backwinging neatly to alight on the far side of Shimpath.

Sarenya slid down the big brown's side, thanking him politely. On her shoulders, Tarnish and Sleek huddled against her, wrapping their tails around her neck and nuzzling her face with their cold noses before she shooed them away.

The blue turned his head towards her, humming a soft greeting. The awning protected his heavily bandaged underside, and the normally lively dragon looked forlorn and vulnerable.

"Oh, Darshanth," Sarenya murmured, hurrying over to him, the rain forgotten. "Oh, you poor, brave thing."

 _I'll be all right,_ the blue said stoically as she stroked his eye ridges.

"Of course you will." She hugged the blue dragon's muzzle, kissing his nose. "Are you comfortable? Is there anything you need?"

Darshanth exhaled a very gentle, warm breath over her through his nostrils. _I'm comfortable. The healers will come to see me again soon and the water of the lake is cool._

"You know that Epherineth flew Shimpath?"

 _I know. I heard._ The placid movement of Darshanth's eyes increased fractionally in speed. _There is one here who would be right for a dragon._

Sarenya shook her head, mock-stern. "You should be resting, Darshanth, not Searching."

 _I_ was _resting. It was the boy who came to take away my…_ The dragon looked dolefully towards his tail, and made a little embarrassed sound in the back of his throat.

Sarenya stayed with Darshanth, making a fuss of him, until L'stev called her. "It seems that C'mine's had quite a few visitors," the old brown rider told her. "We can see him, but not for long. He needs to rest."

She gave Darshanth a final good scratch, promising to talk to him again before they left. As Sarenya left the blue to follow L'stev, she crossed paths with Vhion, the Madellon Master Dragon-healer, and she nodded to him, grateful for his expertise, as he went to rouse Darshanth for his morning soak in Kellad's lake.

Ahead, T'kamen and Valonna walked with the big man Sarenya recognised as Lord Meturvian. Snatches of the conversation between Weyrleader and Holder came back to her.

"…sure we can work out some agreement…maintain the status quo…no need to upset the way of things…"

"…I'm not my predecessor, Meturvian…for the Weyr, not myself…"

"…of course, of course…no harm in keeping things friendly…"

"…tithes must be re-negotiated…"

"…surely, Weyrleader, you understand…this fire, our resources…"

"…if not for the Weyr's assistance, this Hold could be afire now…"

"…yes, I suppose – ah, here we are."

They turned a corner to the infirmary, marked by the Healer emblem on the door. As they were shepherded in, Sarenya thought bleakly that T'kamen was going to have a fight on his hands with the Lords who had grown so accustomed to life under L'dro as Weyrleader.

A sharp-eyed nurse regarded the four visitors suspiciously as they passed into her domain. "Don't tire him out," she snapped. "He's had Faranth knows who in and out all night. He's quite alert, and he's in no pain, but the man needs to sleep, dragonrider or not."

They filed into the cubicle Meturvian indicated. Sarenya had been saddened by Darshanth's condition, but when she saw C'mine she felt shocked. The gentle blue rider's arms and chest were swathed in bandages that extended below the light blanket that covered his lower body. A dressing adorned the left side of his face. He looked as tired and subdued as his dragon. C'los sat beside him, holding his uninjured hand, and by the dark circles under the green rider's eyes, he hadn't slept much.

"Mine," said T'kamen, with a gruff note in his voice. "You're looking better."

C'mine opened his eyes. He looked around with care, not moving his head, and then spoke slowly, so as not to aggravate the burn on his cheek. "Kamen. I should be calling you Weyrleader now. Congratulations."

"I had some help," T'kamen admitted, inclining his head fractionally towards Valonna.

C'mine's eyes flicked from Weyrleader to Weyrwoman. "Don't treat him too badly, Valonna."

The young queen rider flushed and looked away. "It was Shimpath who chose him."

"I'd wager we've a slyer queen in that one than any of us guessed," said L'stev. "She knew Epherineth would beat all the rest on stamina."

"The Weyr was with us," T'kamen said simply. "And that was your idea from the start, Mine."

"Never doubted you."

"But for Saren's message, and Fr'ton for intercepting it, I still wouldn't be any better off." T'kamen threw a look in Sarenya's direction that said more than words. "I never thought I'd be grateful to Fr'ton."

"You have a few scores to settle, too, from what I hear," said L'stev. "H'ersto for trying that stunt during the flight."

"Epherineth tore up Alonth's wing for his trouble," said T'kamen, without relish.

"Don't forget Chuvone," Sarenya put in, remembering when the former dragonrider had shown his true colours.

"What did he do?" asked C'mine.

"Turns out he was passing information to L'dro the whole time." L'stev barked a laugh. "A lot of good it did him."

"I don't know if I could do anything to Chuvone that's worse than what he's done to himself," T'kamen said quietly.

There was an awkward pause. Sarenya cleared her throat slightly. "So how are you feeling, Mine?"

"Numb," C'mine replied. "Like I've been drinking fellis." He looked in Sarenya's direction, and she moved slightly closer to make it easier on the blue rider's eyes. "Darshanth said you were kind. Thank you."

"He's feeling a bit sorry for himself," said Sarenya, "but he's not too uncomfortable. He's tough. You both are."

"Don't encourage him," C'los hissed. "Sharding idiots, both of them."

"C'los," T'kamen said warningly.

The green rider shook his head angrily. "He had no right, trying to be a hero. Shards, if he'd died…and you know for who's sake, Kamen? Ogharn. May he be freezing his ass off _between_ right now, where he belongs."

"Ogharn?" T'kamen asked, sounding surprised, and a little wary.

"Couldn't save him," C'mine said dully.

"You shouldn't even have bothered trying," C'los snapped.

"Lay off, C'los," said L'stev.

"He knew it was me. Didn't say anything. Not until the end. He called me Cairmine. I couldn't save him. I'll never know…"

"You already know," said C'los. "He deserved to die!"

" _C'los_!" T'kamen, L'stev, and Sarenya all objected at once.

The green rider subsided, but Sarenya pitied C'mine in the Turns to come. C'los was never going to forgive the selfless act that had nearly robbed him of his weyrmate.

"You saved a lot of lives, Mine," T'kamen said gently. "No one will forget that: not here, not at Madellon."

"The rain came too late."

"It usually does."

The nurse swept into the cubicle then. "All right, that's enough. Out, all of you." She pointed a menacing finger at C'los. "That includes you, Carellos of the Harperhall!"

"But Allerin…!" C'los swore under his breath. "Sharding relatives! No respect for dragonriders."

One by one they bade C'mine farewell, promising to return soon. Sarenya lingered, waiting till last, and then when everyone else had gone she slipped around to where C'los had been sitting, and gingerly took C'mine's hand.

"It's all right," the blue rider told her. "Not hurt there."

Sarenya gripped it more firmly, then covered it with her other hand, squeezing his fingers. She suddenly knew how C'los felt. "Don't ever risk yourself like that again, Mine."

"Couldn't not try."

"I know, but too many people rely on you. C'los wouldn't be able to cope without you. I'd fall apart."

"You're stronger than you think," C'mine's gaze was as patient as ever, despite his injuries and fatigue. "You can stand up to anything."

"Even T'kamen as Weyrleader?"

"Even that."

She sighed. "I couldn't even ride with him to come here, Mine."

"I know." The blue rider's voice was infinitely understanding, infinitely sympathetic. "I know."

Sarenya hesitated for a long moment, staring at nothing. "Sometimes it feels like Valonna's destined to have everything I want from life. Shimpath, T'kamen…"

"She doesn't have Kamen," C'mine interrupted her. "You know that. And Shimpath – do you think a queen who chose Valonna would ever have been compatible with you?"

"No," Sarenya admitted heavily, "I suppose not."

"A dragon's choice doesn't necessarily make a man, or a woman, strong or decent, Saren." The blue rider's voice was becoming more sluggish. "But as far as I'm concerned, you've never had anything to prove."

The nurse bustled in again, frowning at Sarenya. "Out, out, let him get some rest, and perhaps he'll be out of here by next Turn's End!"

Sarenya smiled ruefully at C'mine. "I'd better go before I end up in the next bed along." Knowing she couldn't hug him, she stroked the back of his hand. "Get better soon, Mine. You know we love you."

C'mine grasped her fingers in his, his normally powerful grip feeble, but no less comforting. "I know. Take care, Saren. Love you too."

* * *

Pacing in the corridor outside the infirmary, T'kamen looked up as Sarenya emerged. She looked like she was fighting back tears. T'kamen knew how she felt. C'mine had been a calm point of reference in his life for Turns, too.

"He's so brave, Kamen," she said. "He could have died yesterday, but he still puts everyone else ahead of himself."

"He'll be all right, Saren," T'kamen reassured her. "He's strong, and Darshanth won't let anything happen to him."

They walked a pace or two down the corridor. Then T'kamen stopped, for the same reason he had waited outside the infirmary. Sarenya halted, glancing uncertainly at him. "Where are L'stev and the Weyrwoman?"

"Went on ahead," T'kamen replied, too quickly, but he'd lost his nerve again.

They continued to walk, in silence. These corridors were still familiar to T'kamen, as cold as ever, wrapped in the thick stone walls of the Hold, and yet they were not home. He was Weyrleader now, the man who must suffuse himself in what was best for the Weyr, undo the damage L'dro had done, set right the corruption of the bronze rider Council.

But he craved one luxury, one indulgence, one reward that his new rank couldn't provide, and finding his courage once more, he stopped again, putting a hand on Sarenya's shoulder. She looked up at him wordlessly, her eyes asking for an explanation. T'kamen breathed deeply, meeting her gaze, as unsure of himself now as he and Epherineth had been certain yesterday.

"You know that mating flights don't mean anything, don't you?"

Sarenya reacted with surprise first, then uncertainty as she ran his words over in her mind, and finally, finally, a slow smile of comprehension that spread all the way to her eyes.

"Yes…I know."


	14. Epilogue

As the Weyr quickened with activity in the early hours of an autumn morning, a single bronze dragon watched from his ledge in unblinking, unreadable silence.

He watched, but not alone. All around him, dragons emerged from their weyrs, shaking out glistening, iridescent wings of blue and brown and green and bronze. By the Star Stones a lone dragon stood vigil, emerald against the brilliant blue sky. In the Bowl a tithe caravan trundled to a halt.

"Watching again?"

The dragon did not turn to regard his companion, but moved his head slightly to allow himself a better view. A golden form, still graceful in pregnancy, veered towards the Hatching ground, and vanished.

Epherineth could hardly wait for T'kamen to vault astride. The bronze sprang from their ledge, letting the air catch under his wings, riding the wind. A chorus of voices questioned the urgency of their lead male, but he didn't reply. The entrance to the Hatching ground loomed, but Epherineth did not check his speed. The great bronze slipped through with a wingspan to spare.

On the hot sand below, Shimpath reared up, flaring her wings, uttering a strange cry somewhere between distress and satisfaction. Respectfully, Epherineth landed at a distance, taking to notice of the heat, all his attention fixed on the queen.

Shimpath calmed, settling back to the ground to rest, breathing in short pants, and rolled the first of her glowing, gleaming, soft-shelled eggs onto a cushioning pile of sand.

Epherineth roared for joy, the silent bronze finding his voice at last. He roared as Shimpath drew herself up to lay a second egg, the second of his progeny, the second egg that contained his future, the future of Madellon, the future of Pern. Epherineth roared until his lungs burned and his throat was sore, and the walls of the Hatching cavern rang with pure jubilation.

The past was gone, the present would pass, but the future stretched ahead, and he had made it his.

**Author's Note:**

> The _Dragonchoice_ trilogy continues in _Dragonchoice 2: Dragonchosen_.
> 
> The illustrated _Dragonchoice_ can be found at the [Dragonchoice website](http://www.dragonchoice.com).


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